


Find Your Way Back to the Start

by Beatbot (HeartInABoxx)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Maggie goes by Ana, Married superlane, Panic Attacks, Slow Burn, superlane has a daughter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-03-13 01:57:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 38,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13560255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartInABoxx/pseuds/Beatbot
Summary: Two women – each running from their own demons – meet in a sleepy, seaside North Carolina town, and sparks fly, but one has a dangerous secret that could threaten them both.  Or the Sanvers Safe Haven re-write that literally no one asked for.  SERIOUS slow burn.Possible trigger warning in later chapters for domestic violence.  Maggie chapters are more prone to mentions, so just be aware.





	1. Maggie

She bursts from the house in a flurry, a desperate sob wrenching from her lips as she nearly trips over her own feet in her haste to get away. Her shoes slip on the rain-slicked concrete of the front walkway before she scurries across the lawn and sprints as fast as she can away from the house.

Her hands are covered in blood, and the sight of them makes her stomach twist and heave, and she prays she can keep her dinner down long enough to make it. She’s clutching a paper grocery bag, just big enough to carry a few items of clothing and all the money she has in the world.

Her tears blur her vision as she rounds the corner, skidding on the pavement again as she takes it too sharply and she nearly falls, but catches herself at the last moment. She throws a look over her shoulder to be sure she isn’t being followed and once she is sure she’s alone, she sprints away once more.

Jake’s house is around the next bend. She’s almost there. She steels her resolve and sniffles back her tears and sprints for the house. The tiny sliver of hope that she feels as her eyes land on his front door is enough to push her the last hundred yards to his stoop, where she pounds at the front door with her balled up fists, trying to stay quiet, but also relay her urgency.

“Jake!” she cries as loudly as she dares, glancing over her shoulder again as both hands hammer the door. “Please open up!”

She’s thankful that he never snaps the porch light on as he unlocks the door, and she collapses in his arms.

“Maggie, you’re bleeding,” he says immediately, pulling her inside and closing and locking the door behind them.

“It’s not mine,” she says distractedly.

“Go wash up,” he says, pointing towards the bathroom. “I guess this means it’s time?”

“I don’t have time to wash up, Jake,” she argues immediately. “I just need the stuff, and I’ll go.”

“You can’t get on a bus like this. Go,” he tells her again, gently. “I’ll get it all together for you. And we have to do your hair.”

Maggie sighs, knowing he’s right, but she can’t help but feel a sense of dread. She hurries to the sink to scrub the blood off her hands and she finds herself transfixed on the pink water swirling around the drain and disappearing from sight.

She jumps at even the lightest knock on the bathroom door and she pulls it open to find Jake with his hands full. He hands her a small plastic bag. “Put this in your bag. New ID and social security number. Her picture is close enough that no one will really question it. Facial recognition won’t flag it either.”

She wants to hug him, because none of this would be possible without him, but instead she hastily shoves the documents in her bag and turns back to the mirror where he’s standing behind her with a pair of scissors.

“How short?” he asks.

She motions to a spot just barely below her shoulders and he makes quick work of chopping off her long, dark hair. She isn’t too sad to see it go. _She’d_ liked her hair long. It was always too much for her.

“This looks good,” he tells her once he’s trimmed it up a bit. He hands her a box of hair dye. “I got the quick stuff. Ten minutes.”

She tries to smile up at him, but her belly is churning with nerves, and she really needs to get going. She grabs the squeeze bottle of hair dye and begins dousing her hair with it quickly, knowing time isn’t on her side.

“I’ll check the bus schedule,” Jake tells her, leaving her to it.

Ten minutes later she’s rinsing her hair out and running a towel over it just enough to keep it from dripping. She pulls a faded baseball cap over her hair and grabs the pillow case that Jake had transferred her items to and slings it over her shoulder.

Jake meets her in the hall and walks her to the door. “Maggie, wait,” he says, stopping her at the doorway.

“Jake, I have to go,” she begs. “But I can’t thank you enough.”

“I know,” he says, and his hand extends enough to press a wad of paper into her hand. “Take this. Please.”

She looks down and realizes he’s given her a wad of cash. She shakes her head and shoves it back towards him. “No. Take it back.”

“No.” He holds up his hands, refusing. “If this is the only thing I can do for you, let me. Please.”

“Jake,” she begs. She doesn’t have time for this. She has to go. Her heart is pounding, and her stomach is in knots. “You’ve done too much already.”

“Take it,” he insists. “Please.”

She stares at him as long as she dares, and squeezes his hand. “Thank you. For everything.”

“Go,” he says. “Your bus leaves in fifteen minutes.”

“Remember-,”

“I never saw you,” he recites, cutting her off with one line of their well-rehearsed story. “I never knew you.”

Her smile is watery this time. “Thank you.”

He smiles too, nodding with his chin towards the door. “Go.”

She opens the door cautiously, and scans the shadowy street for any signs of movement. She takes a step out and waits. When nothing happens, she’s off at a sprint again.

She sticks to the shadows, running through the streets only when absolutely necessary, and only long enough to scramble through someone’s backyard as she makes a steady pace towards the bus station at the center of town.

She feels a lump in her throat when it comes into view, and she pauses only long enough to sneak her pillow case of clothes under her shirt, so she looks pregnant. She pulls her hat down over her eyes and wrenches the door open and makes her way inside, careful to keep her face low below the hat, and hidden by her newly dyed hair.

She’s impatient as she waits for two people before her to buy tickets. She buys a ticket to Atlanta when she steps up to the window, careful not to do a thing that would garner any extra attention. She knows Atlanta is a major hub, and once she gets there, she can disappear to anywhere in the country.

She just has to make it on the bus.

She clutches the ticket tightly enough to make it crumple as she braves the rain once more to make her way onto the bus. Her heart nearly stops at the faint sound of a siren. Panic clouds her vision and she stumbles up the steps, cracking her shin painfully as she falls. She clutches her bag against her belly tighter and scrambles up the steps and onto the bus. It’s crowded, and she picks a seat near the back next to the window, and pulls her hood over her hat and around her face as much as she can without looking suspicious, and prays the bus takes off soon.

Two minutes feel like an eternity, but soon enough she feels the release of the brakes and the bus begins to move. Through the sheet of rain, she can see the whirling lights of a police car near the entrance of the bus station, and her heart is in her throat as she watches a woman exit the vehicle and run through the depot, stopping at the bus three down from hers. The woman steps on long enough to glance at the faces on board before she steps off. She’s furious. Her face is twisted with rage and her wet hair hangs in her eyes. She slams her palms on the side of the bus before she boards the next one in line.

Maggie’s fingers dig into the knees of her jeans as she watches the woman board the bus and storm down the isle. Before the woman can make it off that bus, Maggie’s has pulled away and she feels the knot of tension loosen just enough in her chest that she can take a breath.

She waits, because it all feels too good to be true. Her breathing still too short and erratic, and she’s still clutching at her knees, and she can feel the man in the seat across from hers watching her from the corner of his eye, clearly wondering about her strange behavior.

Her eyes scan the roads as they get on the highway, looking for red and blue lights, desperate to ensure that she’s really free. An hour passes, then two, and she feels her eyes getting heavy, and the adrenaline has finally worn off, but still she watches out the window for any sign that they’ve been followed.

The bus drives through the night, but she doesn’t sleep. It gradually empties the further down the coast they travel. By the time the sun rises, only about half the people remaining on the bus, and she finally feels like she’s far enough away to close her eyes for a few minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had the idea for this story and it wouldn't let me go. It's sort of half book/half movie/half made up in my brain, because I liked certain elements of both the book and the movie, and hated others. Hope you enjoy!


	2. Alex

Alex both loves and loathes bus days.

On one hand, it’s sort of nice to break up the monotony of day-to-day small-town life when a greyhound bus rolls through town on its way to who-knows-where, but on the other hand it means a lot more work in the morning and throughout the day.

She’s up before the sun so she can take a quick run down the beach. The sun is just barely tipping up over the horizon as she makes her way to the hard-packed sand down near the water.

Her pace is slow to start, warming up the knee that still gives her trouble on cool mornings, or damp days. She ignores the weight on her chest thinking about the tiny scar running down the outside of her left knee and the accident that brought it on.

Her carefully edited playlist stretches and wakes and comes to life as she does, and by the third song she’s set a brisk pace that would surely beat her most recent best time if she bothered to wear a watch. Which she really doesn’t anymore. Because why bother measuring time when all you’re running from is demons.

She’d been a doctor in her former life. A trauma surgeon at Duke, more specifically. She’d been home visiting her parents, and her sister Kara and her family when the unthinkable happened.

She was driving her father’s car home from dinner with her parents and niece, Zoe when a drunk driver ran a stop sign and t-boned their car. She had been knocked unconscious for a minute, waking to the sounds of sirens too far away, and the sounds her parents tried to hide so she would help Zoe first, who was bleeding too fast from a long and terrifying gash along her forearm.

She can still hear the metal screeching, and smell the smoke and hear her father moaning right before he died. The way Zoe cried in her arms while they waited for the ambulance.

Emotions form a lump in her throat that make it almost impossible to breathe, so she takes her run down a notch, swiping at her eyes when she feels moisture on her cheeks, telling herself it’s just a bead of sweat.

She glances towards the horizon, able to tell approximately how long she’s been running by the sun’s position and she tells herself that it’s about time to turn around.

Once she’s home, she showers quickly because she’s a few minutes behind schedule, and just as she’s buttoning the last button on her shirt, she hears her front door open and the beautiful, bright chaos that are her sister and niece have descended upon her.

“Aunt Alex!”

“Hey, sweetie!”

Zoe makes a beeline right for her and launches herself up into her aunt’s arms, and Alex grunts because the little girl is getting bigger every day. She hugs the girl in her arms for a moment and presses a kiss to the fading scar on her arm before the tiny version of her sister is squirming to be let down.

“Hi,” Kara greets warmly, watching the entire exchange with an adoring smile.

Alex grins back, because there are literally only two people on the planet able to get her to soften up and they’re both in the room. “Hi.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind watching her?” Kara says. “I know it’s a bus day and you’ll be at the store all day. James said he would take her this afternoon if you needed him to.”

“I absolutely don’t mind watching her,” Alex says, her eyes tracking the tiny form in her kitchen, who has decided to play with the fridge magnets. “I’ll close up for a few hours around lunch to take her to the park.”

Kara nods, and for a few moments they both just watch Zoe, who is singing about a ladybug and making the fridge magnets jump over one another.

“I got the 12th off,” Kara says quietly, and she leans her body into Alex’s.

Alex feels that stabbing pain in her chest again and she slides an arm around her sister’s shoulders and squeezes her tight. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Alex,” Kara sighs softly. “Of course I did. Zoe and I will be here all day and we can go see them any time you want. Okay? We’re with you.”

Alex swallows past that lump again and blinks back her tears. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Kara smiles all sunshine again and leans down to press a kiss to her sister’s cheek. “I have to get to work. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Alex says, and she watches Kara gather Zoe up in her arms and squeezing her tightly, making the girl giggle.

The two of them stand on the front porch and wave as Kara makes her way down the dirt road towards the restaurant.

“Ready to go to the store, Bug?” Alex asks.

“Yay!” Zoe replies, pumping a tiny fist into the air. “Will Mr. Bojangles be there today, Aunt Alex?”

“He sure will,” Alex replies with a grin. Mr. Bojangles is a golden retriever that belongs to one of Alex and Kara’s closest friends, James Olsen. He watches the store for her on occasion when she has a Zoe emergency, or if she just needs a few hours away, and in return Mr. Bojangles doesn’t have to be locked up in the house all day. Alex also brings him to the park when she and Zoe go.

“Yay!” Zoe cheers again, and Alex is fighting tears for the third time that morning, because the one sweet and amazing thing to come of her parents’ accident was that she gets to be a part of this child’s life. She never would have moved back otherwise, and she would only be a distant relative, and it breaks her heart to think about not having the tiny ball of sunshine in her life.

She gathers a bag of toys, coloring books and a baby-proofed ipad in her bag to keep Zoe suitably occupied throughout the day and the pair are out the door and headed downstairs to the store.

She opens the store with a pleasing sense of routine. Her life as a trauma surgeon had been busy and exciting and important to her, but something about rising with the sun and having a very predictable day with the warmth of her family surrounding her has settled something in her that she never knew was there.

She sets up the coffee maker and makes sure that the shelves are stocked with the usual fare for the travelers that will be passing through today. It’s the second Tuesday of the month means that there are 4 buses that will pass through town, and they usually come through at 9 and 10:30 in the morning, and then 2 and 3:30 in the afternoon, which means she can lock up around 11 and take Zoe to the park for an hour to let her run off some steam before she takes a nap through the afternoon.

The first bus comes through with no real fanfare. A spilled cup of coffee in the back is really the most excitement that it brings. The next two pass with no real drama to speak of either.

Megan Henshaw stops by a few minutes before the last bus is set to arrive. Her husband Hank runs the popular seafood restaurant where Kara works. She’s a sweet woman who watches Zoe from time to time when both she and Kara are busy.

“Hey, Alex,” Megan greets warmly.

“Hi,” Alex replies with a smile.   She watches the other woman crouch down next to Zoe and the pair of them chat animatedly about whatever it is that Zoe is coloring on the floor next to the register.

The bus finally arrives, and Megan seems to sense it’s time to get going. She pays for her purchases and crouches down to say goodbye to Zoe, earning a grin from the little girl and a new picture to hang on her fridge.

“You should bring her by the restaurant some time, Alex,” Megan says as she stands upright again, holding the new picture carefully, like it means everything to her. And that means everything to Alex. “It’s been too long.”

“I’ll try,” Alex answers honestly, because before she moved away to go to medical school, Hank and Megan had been her closest friends, and things had never quite been the same since she came back. “Maybe this weekend.”

“Sounds good, sweetie,” Megan says with a warm smile. “See you later.”

She finishes with the customer at the register and when she glances up to greet the next one, she finds herself staring at what is probably the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen. She has dark eyes, and shaggy, dyed hair covered by a worn, navy baseball hat, and a tight, nervous smile shows off dimples that nearly stop her heart.

The woman’s dark eyes meet hers, and neither of them move for a moment, both sort of momentarily stunned.

The woman nearly jumps three feet in the air when a loud bang startles them both. Alex recovers quickly once she realizes someone dropped something in the aisle towards the back of the store, but the woman looks shaken, having gone completely pale.

“You all set?” Alex finally asks, motioning to the items in her hands.

The woman nods and steps forward to drop her items on the counter with visibly shaking hands. “Where am I?” she asks quietly. Her voice sounds kind of sleepy, and she clears her throat.

One of Alex’s brows rises in a playful sort of way. “Well, at the moment you’re in my store. But in the grander sense, you’re in Southport, North Carolina.”

The woman can’t help but let one corners of her lips twitch, and there are those dimples again. Her dark eyes cut to the window to scan the ocean, visible from where she stands. “It’s beautiful here.”

Alex shrugs a shoulder. “It’s a small town, which has its good and its bad. But I’m pretty fond of it.” She places the last of her items in a bag. “Three fifty.”

“Cheap coffee,” the woman mumbles.

Alex smirks again. “Clearly you haven’t tasted it yet. Worth every penny.”

“Thanks,” she says.

“Sure.” Alex nods, holding her gaze for a moment.

Suddenly there’s a half smile tugging at Alex’s lips. And if she had any guts at all she would ask this woman’s name, but she knows she’ll be back on a bus to who-knows-where in the next five minutes and Alex will never see her again.

Instead she just nods, and with one last dimple-baring, heart-stopping smile, the beautiful stranger is gone.


	3. Maggie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie gets a new job, a new name, and a place to live...she also meets Alex's adorable niece

Maggie exits the store, and steps into the sun. She makes a split-second decision and rather than getting back on the bus, she heads for one of the docks out back. She walks down about halfway and leans her elbows against the railing, letting the breeze blow through her shortened hair as she cradles her coffee cup between both hands. She inhales deeply through her nose and tilts her face up towards the sun.

She feels free.

Well, as free as one can feel with the knowledge that someone is hunting her down, most likely furious that she’d gotten away, and probably planning a very painful, terrifying form of punishment for her if she’s ever found.

The sound of the bus giving a quick warning honk startles her from her terrifying thoughts, signaling she has about a minute to get back to it if she plans on going all the way down to Atlanta. She gives herself a moment to really think about what she wants and to enjoy the freedom of making the decision herself, and she finds that she doesn’t want to get back on the bus. She thinks this sleepy town might be exactly what she needs. Small and out of the way, quiet enough to hide.

At least for now.

She turns to lean against the railing and she watches the bus pull away, and realizes that now she’s figured out where she wants to stay, she has a lot of work to do. She takes a sip of her coffee and it nearly makes her gag, but she chokes it down, because if nothing else, it’s at least a source of caffeine, and since she already paid for it, it would be a waste not to drink it.

She’s lucky it’s warm enough to sleep on the beach that night. Not that she gets much sleep when she’s waiting for someone to jump out of the shadows and drag her back to Boston at any possible moment. She sleeps with her back pressed against one of the massive poles holding the pier up, the strap of her bag wrapped around her wrist, and to her it feels like she wakes every ten minutes.

She gives up on sleeping as the sun rises. She curls her knees up to her chest and wraps both arms around her legs as she takes in a deep breath of salt air, and that’s when movement catches her eye.

A woman is sprinting down the beach towards her. She’s a few hundred yards away and Maggie can’t help but admire her form as she gradually comes into focus as she gets closer. She presses herself a little further into the shadows of the pier as the woman gets closer, and as she does she takes in the woman’s fair skin and short dark hair, and when the sun catches her hair and highlights the red, she realizes it’s the same woman from the store the day before. The woman in the store had called her Alex.

Alex sprints the last twenty yards before she slows to a walk. She stops a moment, hands on her knees, panting, and when she stands upright again she’s swiping at her eyes, clearly crying. Maggie watches her, feeling like she’s intruding on such a personal moment of a woman she doesn’t even know, but she can’t turn away.

Alex presses a hand over her eyes, her head tilted up towards the sun, and she’s swiping at her eyes again, with her sleeves this time. She places both hands on her head as she catches her breath, and a moment later she’s headed back down the beach the way she came, gradually allowing her step to quicken to an easy jog as she gets further down the beach.

Maggie is unable to get the image of Alex from her mind as she watches from under the pier as a small restaurant right on the beach comes alive. Henshaw’s. From the woman’s t-shirt the day before. A man arrives early and unlocks the doors, and a steady wave of employees arrive before seven a.m. to serve the breakfast rush.

Maggie is patient. Even though her stomach is grumbling traitorously. She knows that waiting tables is probably going to be her best bet for finding employment with no resume to speak of. Jake’s late sister’s ID and social security card should work in a place like this.

She waits until the breakfast rush is over, and before the lunch rush starts and she makes her way inside where a man is bent over behind the counter.

“Excuse me, is your owner available?” she asks him.

“I’m the owner.” He stands upright and smiles warmly – if a little curiously - at her. “Hank Henshaw. What can I do for you?” He’s tall and muscular, with dark skin and incredibly kind eyes.

“I was wondering if you had any job openings?” she asks.

He stares at her for a moment, his eyes boring into her, and she holds her breath because she can practically taste the rejection coming, but he surprises her and nods.

“We’ve been pretty busy lately, I think I can work you in,” he tells her with a nod.

They chat for a bit about schedules and paperwork, which she fills out with all the fake information that Jake had given her. She tries to be charming. She tries desperately to be the woman she was before her life took a nosedive, and she smiles with her dimples and prays that he can’t see how haunted she is by the life she left behind.

She’s sent on her way an hour later with a full schedule for the week and several brightly colored shirts to wear for her shifts. She stuffs the shirts in her bag and knows her next task is to find a place to live. She ignores her rumbling stomach, and how good the seafood smells as she heads off towards town to find a realtor.

 

 

The next day is Maggie’s first day at Henshaw’s. She arrives a few minutes early and waits at the bar, filling out a little more first-day paperwork. Hank tells her to sit tight until her trainer, Lucy, arrives. He has her fill out a stick-on nametag, and she nearly writes her real name on it, but catches herself just as she finishes the first half of the ‘M’, so she has to get creative to cover the mistake. As she waits, she can’t help but expand on her doodle across the name tag. She draws a tiny caricature of herself and decorates her new name with a few flowers.

Several people stop to introduce themselves as she waits for Lucy. She meets the bartender, James, a kind looking guy with a bald head and a wide smile. Winn, one of the cooks is next. He’s quiet and kind of nerdy, but he swears he makes the best burgers on the east coast. Two girls arrive next, their arms linked, and their heads bowed close together as they chat about something.

“Hey, Lucy!” Henshaw calls towards the pair of girls, and one looks his way. “You’re in charge of the new girl today! Don’t scare this one away please.”

Lucy’s head swivels in Maggie’s direction, and Maggie smiles at her tentatively. Lucy disengages from the other girl and they both make their way over to her.

“Hi,” Maggie greets. “I’m Ana.”

“I see that,” Lucy replies, nodding towards the nametag. Her expression is hard to read. She’s smiling, but her eyes are boring right through Maggie. “I’m Lucy. This is Kara.”

“Hi,” Kara greets cheerfully, sticking her hand out to shake Maggie’s, and she catches sight of the doodles on the name tag on the table. “Cute name tag. Where are you from?”

“Oh.” Maggie feels a jolt of adrenaline because as much as she’s practiced her cover story, now it’s finally time to start selling the lie. “Um. Richmond. Virginia.”

Immediately, Kara launches into a story about the one time she and Lucy apparently went skiing in Virginia, and she continues chatting as she makes her way to the back of house, not really noticing that neither of the other two are even following her.

Lucy gives her a wry look. “You get used to her. Come on,” she says, making Maggie release a breath she wasn’t even aware she was holding. “Lots to do before the lunch rush.”

It’s been a while since Maggie has had a job, and though she waited tables in college, she forgot how physically demanding it could be. Lucy shows her the ropes, and she’s good at what she does. Maggie tries not to blush when she catches Lucy pressing Kara against the wall to steal a few kisses behind the building when things get slow and she needs a table’s check.

Her shift seems to end quickly. It’s a nice enough day, and the crowd is steady all day long. By the end of her shift, Maggie has fallen right back into the rhythm of waiting tables, and Lucy seems impressed.

They roll silverware at a table with Kara at the end of their shift, and Henshaw tells her she did well enough that she won’t need to train with Lucy any more, which fills her with relief, because she literally can’t wait much longer to start making her own tips.

“So how long have you been in town, Ana?” Winn asks.

Maggie shrugs a shoulder up, focusing her gaze on the silverware before her. “A few days.”

“Where are you staying?” Kara asks.

The questions are innocent enough, but they make Maggie’s skin prickle with paranoia. _They’re just curious. It’s a small town._ “I rented a cottage not far from here.”

“One of the little ones off Liberty?” Lucy asks. Maggie nods. “James, the bartender, he lives in the one on the very end of the street. He said he saw someone had moved in next door. I guess you guys are neighbors.”

Maggie tries to smile, but she feels like her teeth are sticking to her lips. “Great.”

“Hey, so I think we’re gonna go to the beach later tonight and have a bonfire,” Kara says. “You should join us, Ana. You too, Winn.”

“Cool,” Winn says.

Maggie tenses, her mind whirling to come up with a way out. “I shouldn’t.”

“What?” Kara asks, looking for all the world like someone kicked her puppy. “Oh, come on. Our shifts don’t start until ten tomorrow.”

“Kara,” Lucy scolds softly, affectionately, slapping her thigh under the table. “Don’t be rude. She probably has unpacking to do.”

“I do have a lot of unpacking to do,” Maggie agrees. She realizes then that she will definitely have to watch Kara and her ability to talk anyone into practically anything with her pout and puppy-dog eyes.

“Oh. Yeah, of course,” Kara mumbles a little dejectedly, but then she brightens again. “Let us know if you have a housewarming or anything. We’re totally there. Right, Luce?”

Lucy sighs, rolling her eyes and glancing at Maggie. “Don’t mind her and her ability to invite herself literally anywhere. “

Maggie smiles genuinely for the first time that day. “It’s no problem.” She nearly jumps out of her seat when James greets the group from behind her. She tunes him out as he chats with the rest of the table, focused on getting her breathing under control.

When she glances up she notices that Lucy is watching her with another unreadable expression that makes her stomach twist.

She only has to wait a few more minutes to be released from work. They load up the bin near the hostess stand with all their rolled silver, and all head for the exit. She waves goodbye to them and begins her walk home.

 

 

Two hours later she’s standing in her small cottage that she’d rented. It’s certainly not much, but it’s hers, and it’s safe.

For now.

She and the landlord struck a deal once she mentioned that she’s pretty handy, and he agrees to buy her all the supplies she needs if she puts in the work to spruce the place up.  

Her stomach growls and she realizes that she’ll have to go shopping at some point, so she slips on her shoes and heads towards town.

The walk isn’t long, maybe a mile. And she feels good being out in the sunlight. Free even.

The small store from the day before comes into view and for the first time she notices the black writing on the door. _Danvers Port Market._

She pushes the door open easily, ringing the little bell above it to signal that someone has arrived. She’s the only one in the store at the moment, so she grabs a basket and peruses the shelves to grab a few items. Once she’s sure she has everything she needs she drops the basket on the counter, mentally calculating her total, and she glances around to see if anyone has noticed she’s even there.

All of a sudden, a small blonde head pokes up from behind the counter and the little girl from the day before grins up at her. She’s missing one of her front teeth, and her gap-tooth grin is adorable. One glance down at the floor behind the counter lets Maggie know that she’s been coloring.

“Hi.”

Maggie immediately smiles back at her. She’s probably only about four or five, and she has dark blue eyes and dimples. “Hi. I like your picture.”

She beams at her and scoops down to pick it up and hold it up for her to see. “It’s a whale eating watermelon.”

“It’s wonderful.”

“Do you want it?”

The little girl stares up at her with wide, excited eyes and Maggie can’t help but reach for it. “I love it. Thank you.” Her chest constricts in such an odd way and she feels the back of her eyes prickle with tears.

She grins. “You’re welcome.” She steps up onto a step stool behind the counter and Maggie can get a better look at her. Her dirty blonde hair is pulled back into a long, curly ponytail and she’s dressed in an adorable Supergirl t-shirt that brings out her beautiful blue eyes. A pink tutu and tights caps off the outfit, and something about the innocence of it all makes her ache a little.

Maggie glances around the store. “Are your parents around?”

“No, my moms aren’t here,” she says, reaching into the basket to pull out each item one at a time. “My Aunt Alex is! But I can help you, too.”

Aunt Alex. That explains her presence in the store and she can’t help but start putting the pieces together of the people she’s met in town so far.

Maggie watches her with an amused smile, because she’s clearly done this before and she thinks it might be the cutest thing she’s ever seen.

“Are you looking for anything?” the little girl asks rather helpfully.

“Well…” Maggie smiles wider. She can’t help but feel totally disarmed by this child. She feels all her walls and defenses sliding down in her presence. It actually feels wonderful to let that stress drain away and let her guard down. Even if it’s only for a moment. “Now that you ask, do you have any paint?”

“No.” She shakes her head looking thoughtful for a moment. Then she lights up with a smile. “But we have a book with a lot of different colors that you can get.”

“Oh really?” Maggie asks.

“What are you painting?” she asks, staring up at her curiously.

Maggie shrugs, leaning her elbows down on the counter. “I was thinking of painting my kitchen floor.”

“Your floor?” she asks, and breaks out into hysterical giggles. “Why do you want to paint the floor?”

“Why shouldn’t I paint the floor?” she asks, lighting up at the sound of her laughter. But part of her aches, because she remembers a time when her dream of having children had been so close. Now it seems completely impossible, and she never realized how badly that would hurt.

“You’re not supposed to paint the floor,” she giggles. “You’re supposed to paint the walls!”

“Well I want to brighten the place up a little,” she says, the aching knot in her chest lessening with her sweetness. “What would be a good color do you think?”

“Hmm,” she hums, looking genuinely thoughtful and it’s all Maggie can do not to laugh at her adorable expression. “You could do yellow? It’s the color of the sun!”

“That would certainly brighten things up,” Maggie says. “I think I’m sold on that one now.”

She giggles again and steps down off his stool. “I’ll go get the book! My name’s Zoe.”

“Hi, Zoe,” she greets. “I’m Ana.”

“Hi, Miss Ana.”

Zoe runs off to the back of the store, and Maggie waits patiently, but before she returns, Alex enters through the back door carrying several boxes. She sets them all down and turns like she’s about to go back out for more, when she catches sight of Maggie.

Alex does a double take and approaches slowly, smiling like she can’t quite believe Maggie is standing there. She’s dressed in a pair of cutoff khaki shorts, and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows over a white tank top and her hair is pulled back off her face. She looks stunning. “You’re still here?”

Maggie smiles kindly enough, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her shorts. Talking to kids is one thing. Adults are another story altogether. She has to remind herself to be friendly, but forgettable. And that task becomes exponentially harder with a woman as beautiful as Alex standing before her.

“I am.”

Alex swallows hard and moves to the register. “Let me, uh, let me check you out.” Her face scrunches a little at the choice of words, and it makes Maggie bite back a smirk. There’s a tiny smudge of dust across Alex’s chin that Maggie finds more endearing than she’d like to admit, and she clenches her hands in her pockets to keep from reaching across the counter to wipe it away.

Alex grabs a paper bag and shakes it open, placing it on the counter. “Sorry, it’s just that most people don’t stick around. They’re just passing through. Ten minutes is enough.”

Maggie shrugs, hands retreating from her pockets as she glances around, her right hand finding her left and twisting at the wedding ring that’s no longer there. “I like it,” she says softly. She forces her hands to still when she realizes that Alex’s eyes are locked on to her fingers.

Before either of them can say anything else, Zoe comes barreling back in, holding up the book of paint swatches triumphantly. “Found it!”

“Oh, sweetie, that’s not-“ Alex says at the same time Maggie says, “Thank you.”

Alex looks a little bewildered when she looks from the book up to Maggie, who’s smiling warmly at Zoe. “Are you painting something?”

“She’s going to paint her floors,” Zoe supplies helpfully. “Aunt Alex, maybe we can paint the floors in here!”

Alex raises a brow at her, and she’s clearly holding back a grin. “You think we should paint the floors in here?” Zoe nods happily. “I’ll think about it.” She tosses the book of swatches into the paper bag laid out for Maggie’s things.

“I can take it home?” Maggie asks.

Alex nods. “Of course. Pick out your color and we’ll order it up for you.” She goes about ringing up Maggie’s items, tossing them playfully to Zoe, who grabs them with a giggle and packs them away. It’s clear this is something they do often, and Maggie thinks it’s adorable. It’s all she can do not to melt.

_Friendly but forgettable_. The thought sobers her instantly.

“We have some books down here that people leave on vacation,” Alex says, pointing down to a shelf next to the register. “You should take one.”

“They’re really good books!” Zoe adds excitedly.

“How do you know?” Alex asks, her eyes narrowed playfully. “You’ve never read them.”

This just makes Zoe giggle again, and Maggie carefully sets Zoe’s picture on top of her items and folds the top of the bag slowly to keep it from crinkling the picture. When she glances up again she notices Alex watching her carefully, with a warm sort of expression on her face. It makes her blush. She picks up the bag and snatches up a random book from the bin. “Thank you again for the picture, Zoe,” she calls with a smile as she heads back out the door.

“Bye, Miss Ana!”

“Bye.” Maggie meets Alex’s eyes before she steps out, and holds up the book. “Thanks.”

Alex nods, and just Maggie is just stepping away from the door when she hears someone inside question, “When did we start selling paint?” This, for some reason, makes her smile, but it fades almost instantly as she remembers again why she’s here in the first place.


	4. Alex

Having Zoe in her life is without a doubt the best thing that ever came from her parents’ accident, and she reminds herself of that whenever she’s particularly sad about losing them. Especially the way the guilt of moving away, and also for being the one driving the car that night settles on her shoulders and presses deep down into her.

And not that she _likes_ to count the good to come from that horrible night, but it does help that the other good thing to come from it is the relationship she has with Kara.

She knew when she left for college that it was going to be a grueling 10-plus years of training that she would have to be away from her family when she would only get to see them for a few days at a time. It took some adjusting after Kara came to live with her family, but once she truly accepted that she had a little sister for good, she and Kara became incredibly close, inseparable, since they were only a year apart.

Later that night Alex is armed with a pizza, a six pack, and two DVD’s tucked under her arm when she kicks at her sister’s front door. She grins when she hears the patter of tiny feet scurrying towards the door, her head tilts as she waits for Kara to remind Zoe not to open the door by herself, then the door is flung open to find Kara and her miniature waiting for her with matching smiles.

“Aunt Alex!” Zoe screeches, like they didn’t just spend the day together.

Alex grins. “Hi, sweetheart!” She presses a kiss to her sister’s cheek when Kara swings the screen door open for her so she can come inside.

“Hi,” Kara greets warmly as she takes the pizza box from her.

“Hey,” Alex replies. She pulls one of the DVD’s out from under her arm and holds it up for Zoe, whose eyes get wide when she sees it. “Look what I got for you, Bug!”

“Yay!” Zoe cries. She waits until Alex hands it over to take it, and suddenly she’s headed for the living room, and a minute later the TV begins to sing the theme to the latest cartoon obsession of Miss Tiny Danvers.

“How does she even know how to work the DVD player?” Alex asks, glancing over her shoulder at the little girl totally entranced by the TV. “I can’t even get it to power on.”

“I have no idea,” Kara tells her, leading her towards the kitchen. “It’s scary. She does things with my tablet that I can’t even figure out how she got to them.”

Alex laughs, and they settle at the counter with the pizza and beer, chatting for about an hour until Zoe comes wandering in.

“Mommy, I’m hungry,” she says, just a hint of a whine coming out.

Kara leans down to scoop her up. “Okay, baby. How about some pizza?” Zoe nods against her shoulder and it makes Kara grin.

“When’s momma coming home?” she asks.

“She should be home soon,” Kara tells her, dropping her down gently to stand in one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Alex moves to grab the booster seat and gets her settled while Kara cuts up a slice of pizza into bite-sized pieces.

Alex grabs two more beers and pops the tops as they sit down at the table with Zoe.

“So, how was your day at the store with Aunt Alex?” Kara asks, reaching out to swipe some rogue sauce from her daughter’s chin with an adoring smile.

The smile makes Alex ache, because having children has never been a pressing issue in her life, and she still thinks about having them, but to see her sister so utterly fascinated, loving, cherishing and smitten with this child makes her heart ache for it even more.

“Mr. Bojangles and me played fetch,” Zoe announces with a giggle, making both the adults at the table smile at her adoringly. “And we sold a sad lady some paint, but I gave her a picture, and that made her smile. Then we went to the park and rolled down the hills a lot. Then I took a nap.”

“A sad lady?” Kara asks, her brow pinching, but a smile tugging at her lips, like she can’t quite decide what to make of that information.

“Uh,” Alex stutters just thinking about the woman in the store today with the sad, haunted eyes, but a smile that could light up the room. A smile that could stop her heart. “She’s new in town. Her name is Ana?”

Kara perks up. “Kind of short, shaggy hair that’s kind of badly dyed, dark eyes and heart-stopping dimples?”

“That was oddly specific,” Alex quips, sipping her drink.

“She works at the restaurant,” Kara tells her, smiling bright and sunny. “She just started. Oh my gosh, Alex, isn’t she beautiful?”

Alex raises one brow. “Careful, Kara, don’t let your wife hear you say that.”

“Ana’s totally dreamy.” Kara waves her off. “And Luce totally agrees.” Her head tilts as she puts it all together. “So Ana came to the store and you and Zoe sold her paint? I didn’t know you sold paint.”

“I don’t,” Alex grumbles, taking a sip of her beer. She points accusingly at Zoe, who grins up at her with a pizza-sauce grin that makes her heart feel like it’s literally melting in her chest. “But this one gave her a book of swatches and it was _just_ awkward enough that I decided that making a call to order some paint really wasn’t a big deal.”

“Right.” Kara doesn’t look convinced. She smirks. “And the fact that she’s gorgeous had nothing to do with the fact that you ordered her paint, even though it’s not even remotely your job?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Alex rolls her eyes and ignores the question entirely. “She won’t last three weeks here. She’ll get bored out of her skull and head back to wherever she came from.”

Kara goes completely still and silent for so long that Alex begins to wonder if she’s having a stroke. Then she looks up at Alex with those eyes. The ones that have gotten her anything and everything she’s ever wanted since she came to live with her family all those years ago.

Alex sighs and resigns herself to defeat before her sister even speaks. “What, Kara?”

Kara shrugs up a shoulder and takes a step closer. “Maybe you should get to know her. She seems kind of sad, and kind of lonely and you know how hard it is to make friends in this town.”

Alex opens her mouth to respond, but she’s cut off by the back door opening.

“Helloooo!”

Zoe is up and out of her seat before Kara or Alex can even move.

“Momma!”

Zoe races past them and straight into the arms of Lucy Lane.

“Hi, sweetie,” Lucy greets her, pressing several playful kisses to the little girl’s face, making her squeal with delight, and she props her easily on her hip. Lucy makes her way to Kara’s side and kisses her softly, running her free hand over her hair affectionately. “Hey, baby.”

“Hi,” Kara greets, practically purring when Lucy keeps her close for a moment longer to kiss her again.

Alex has to turn away. Her sister is so deliriously happy, and her family is so sweet, but it makes her own glaring loneliness gnaw at her chest cavity. The lump is in her throat again and she swallows a sip of her beer to give herself something to do.

“Hey, Luce,” Alex greets easily as she turns back.

“Hi, Alex,” Lucy replies, smiling, but Alex can still see just a hint of something in her expression that creates an instant tension in the room.

Kara frowns between the two of them, and the guilt is so immediate that it makes Alex’s chest hurt.

Alex wraps both hands around her beer and stares at the label as she peels it away. There’s been a tension between them for years, and she knows that Lucy still hasn’t totally forgiven her for leaving. And part of her understands that. She’d left her parents and a pretty devastated little sister behind, and Lucy practically held her family together with tape and glue.

Alex knows, even two years after she came back, that Lucy is still pissed at her. And if she didn’t make Kara and Zoe so ridiculously happy she’d probably have a lot more to say about it. She’s sure Lucy would too.

But they put it aside for Kara’s sake, and Zoe’s. But it hurts Alex to this day. No one had been closer to Alex back then than Lucy Lane. Other than Kara. And it still hurts that she’s lost her best friend.

“How’s the store doing, Alex?” Lucy asks politely. She reaches into the fridge for her own beer and pops the top easily, Zoe slung on her hip the entire time. Motherhood had come so easily to her. It had taken Kara a little more time. But Lucy had always been a natural. It really suited her.

“Good.” Alex nods her head, swallowing down the last of her beer. She’s ready to go. She loves Kara and Lucy both, but being in the same room with them for too long makes her want to cry. “Buses keep it from becoming too boring.”

“Good,” Lucy says.

“I’d ask how Henshaw’s is, but Kara pretty much gives me a rundown every day,” Alex says with an awkward sort of smile, because they’re about to run out of small talk any minute and then things will get even more awkward.

But then Lucy surprises her.

“Speaking of,” Lucy says, a sly grin on her face, and God, how Alex misses that smile. It’s the same one that nearly got them both expelled from Duke years ago. “We got a new waitress today.”

“I’m aware,” Alex says. “I met her. Your daughter sold her some paint.”

Lucy absolutely lights up at this information, and looks to the little girl for confirmation. “You sold Miss Ana some paint today, Bug?” Zoe nods enthusiastically and Lucy turns to Alex and winks. “Isn’t she gorgeous, Alex?”

Alex rolls her eyes and pokes a finger into her niece’s belly to make her giggle. “Yes. Ana is beautiful. That goes without saying.”

“Zoe is right though,” Kara muses quietly, looking thoughtful. “She does seem really sad.” Her expression brightens suddenly. “Maybe I can bake her cookies. Cookies always make me feel better!”

Alex and Lucy share a bemused grin, and for a moment it’s like things between them are normal again. They seem to come to that realization at the same moment and both look away. Alex remembering all the times she tried to reach out to her former best friend, and being shut down.

Clearly Kara caught the moment of clarity between the two of them, because if possible she looks more hurt than she had a moment ago. It twists at Alex’s insides because she’s felt responsible for so much of Kara’s anguish over the last several years and she hates that her stupid feud with Lucy is only adding to that.

But she’s hurt, too.

She decides she’s had enough guilt for the evening, so she pushes her chair back and stands, leaning down to press a kiss to Zoe’s cheek, then Kara’s. She does her best to smile at Lucy. “I better get home.”

“Bye, Aunt Alex,” Zoe says, suddenly pouting.

Alex cups her chin, then tweaks her nose playfully, earning a giggle from the little girl and it makes the knots in her belly uncoil just a bit. “Bye, sweetie.”

Kara smiles at her, warm and understanding, as always. “Bye.”

She does her best to smile at the other two and heads for the front door, ignoring another stab of loneliness as she hears Lucy begin to chase Zoe around the house, bellowing about bath time and Zoe screeching as she runs away, Kara giggling in the background.


	5. Maggie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie settles in, and tries so hard not to let anyone in. But Kara Danvers is an unstoppable force, and Maggie isn't so much an immovable object. Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly have no idea if the medical stuff Lucy and Kara have gone through is really even possible...so suspend your disbelief for the sake of this story. (please?)

It doesn’t take long for Maggie to fall into a routine in her new home. She works nearly every day, and on mornings or evenings that she isn’t at the restaurant, she’s cleaning her cottage. She spends too many evenings on all fours, scrubbing the bathroom until it shines, and dusting every available surface. She keeps a coffee can stuffed with her spare cash hidden in the floorboards, and with each passing day it gets just a little bit more full. She feels her anxiety lessen with every dollar she’s able to add to the can, because it means if she has to escape again, starting over will be that much easier.

The only thing she splurges on is coffee.

Maggie fiddles with the edges of the paint swatch book as she walks towards Alex’s store after work one afternoon. It keeps her hands from unconsciously twisting the wedding band that’s no longer there.

She smiles thinking about the cookies Kara had brought in for her. She’d called them welcome cookies, but later had quietly confided to her that she hoped they would make her smile.

Kara Danvers was far too sweet for this world.

She and Lucy make quite the pair. Both stunningly beautiful; one a giant ball of sunshine, and the other hard, with pointy edges that seemed to melt around the other.

She would be happy to call them both friends in her former life, and she finds it harder every day to keep her distance from them both, especially with someone as sweet and pure as Kara.

She finds herself constantly trying to remember to keep some space between them.

And thinking about people to maintain space with makes her think of Alex. She’s the kind of woman she would have found it impossible to not gravitate towards in her old life. She has the kindest eyes, and she’s so, so beautiful. She finds herself captivated and wanting to know everything about her.

It makes her breathless to think about Alex, so she focuses on the swatch book in her hands, reading the names of the colors to keep her mind distracted from the people surrounding her in this new life.

She rounds the bend and Alex’s store comes into view. A minute later the bell over the door is signaling her arrival and she twists the swatch book between her fingers nervously.

“Hi, Miss Ana,” a soft voice greets.

Her eyes follow the sound to find Zoe sitting on the floor behind the register playing dress up with some dolls.

She grins down at the little girl, taking a few steps closer. “Hi, Miss Zoe. Who have you got there?”

Zoe holds the dolls up one by one. “This is Cynthia and this is Abigail.”

“Cynthia and Abigail,” Maggie repeats. “What are they going to be dressed as?”

“Superheroes!” Zoe cheers, thrusting both dolls into the air above her head. She’s silent a beat as she lowers the dolls and stares at them for a moment before looking up at Maggie with wide eyes. “Which one should be Supergirl and which one should be Batgirl?”

“Hmm,” Maggie hums as she ponders this like it’s one of life’s big choices. She points to the blonde doll. “I think Cynthia should be Supergirl and Abigail should be Batgirl.”

“Me too!” Zoe exclaims.

The screen door squeaks as it opens and Alex steps into the store, smiling brightly when she sees Maggie. She sets the boxes in her arms aside and moves towards the counter, brushing her hands over her shorts.

“Hi.”

Maggie tries. She tries so hard not to let her face do the thing with the dimples, because that way only leads to trouble. But her lips and cheeks seem to move of their own accord around Alex, and suddenly she’s smiling.

“Hi.”

Alex blushes and Maggie finds herself captivated at the way the color blooms beautifully over her cheeks and to the tips of her ears. But she reminds herself for the hundredth time that she isn’t here to make friends, she’s here to disappear.

“I’m not sure we’ve officially met. Alex Danvers. Zoe’s aunt, Kara’s sister, Lucy’s sister-in-law.” She holds her hand out.

“That’s an awfully long title you’ve got there, Danvers,” Maggie teases softly. But then her stomach drops. A teasing comment like that back in Boston would have gotten her a black eye. Or a beer bottle thrown at her head. Whether she realizes it or not, she braces for impact.

“Believe it or not, the list goes on,” Alex quips. She takes a step backwards, putting a little more space between them, casually stuffing her hands into the pockets of her shorts. “That was the short version.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Alex,” Maggie says, her voice shaking, but body relaxing as she realizes she won’t be punished for teasing. “I’m Ana.” The fake name still sounds so foreign to her, but she finds it’s rolling off her tongue much easier now.

“Hi.” Alex nods. She clears her throat when she seems to realize she’s staring, and points at the swatch book in Maggie’s hands. “Did you decide on one?”

Maggie nods, flipping the book open to the shade of yellow she picked out. She watches as Alex slowly comes around the corner of the counter to stand next to her, still careful to leave some distance between them. She holds her hands out and waits for Maggie to place the book in them, rather than snatching it from her like Maggie had gotten so used to.

It’s so simple, and so simply kind that it makes Maggie’s heart somersault in her chest. The smallest gestures from those around her have been slowly rebuilding her trust in people again and it feels really, really good.

Of course, she isn’t diluting herself into thinking that she’s safe.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

“I think I’m gonna go with Lemon Twist.”

Alex stares at her for a beat, the corner of her mouth quirking and her dark eyes sparkling almost mischievously. “You’re going to paint the floors yellow.”

There’s a teasing edge to her voice, and then a beautiful sort of half smile works its way onto her lips.

Maggie nods, desperate to remain stoic. Friendly but forgettable. “Yeah, it’s happy.”

“Like the sun!” a little voice chimes in from behind the counter, making them both grin.

“Like the sun, Zo.” Alex nods in agreement and Maggie hands the book over. “Are you thinking like a gallon?”

Maggie nods, stuffing her hands in her pockets once they’re empty. “That would be great.”

“Okay,” Alex nods. She scribbles the order in a little book and tears out a receipt for Maggie, handing it over. “It should take a few days. I’ll let you know when it comes in?”

“Thanks,” Maggie tells her with a nod, stuffing the receipt in her pocket. “See ya.” She peeks over the counter. “Cynthia and Abigail look very tough, Zoe.”

“Yeah!” Zoe cries, thrusting both dolls- now fully dressed – up in the air. “We’re gonna get the bad guys.”

“Good luck, ladies,” Maggie tells her seriously. She glances up to find Alex watching her with a soft sort of smile on her face, and it makes her blush. But she can’t seem to help it around Zoe. She’s a special kid.

“Thanks again.”

Alex nods. “Any time.”

**XXXX**  

A few nights later she’s walking home from work, and she hears the telltale signs of a car rumbling up the road behind her. She moves to the edge of the dirt road and forces her panic down, but then she turns and recognizes the old orange jeep as Lucy, with Kara in the passenger seat, and she suddenly feels a bloom of warmth for the other two that sort of catches her off guard because she’s only known them a matter of weeks.

_Friendly but forgettable, friendly but forgettable_ , she tells herself again and again.

“Ana!” Kara exclaims cheerfully. She has a rather adorable white bucket hat on over her head that she has pressed against the crown of her head with one hand. She waves happily with the other.

It’s sort of ridiculous how quickly ‘friendly but forgettable’ tends to go out the window around Kara Danvers.

Maggie tilts her head as they get closer, and sure enough, she can hear Zoe yelling ‘weeeeeee’ from the back of the jeep. It makes her grin.

Lucy slows down as she pulls along side her and they greet her with easy smiles. They’re both dressed casually, and they’re tan and practically glowing with happiness, and she’s so envious of them in that moment that she can barely breathe.

“Hi, Miss Ana,” Zoe greets happily with a wave from her car seat in the back.

“Hi, Miss Zoe,” Maggie replies with a smile.

“Can we give you a lift?” Lucy asks with a friendly smile. “We’re headed your way.”

“James has a game night every week,” Kara explains. Her eyes grow wide with excitement suddenly. “You should totally come some time!”

“Maybe,” Maggie replies with a smile, hoping she doesn’t come across like a bitch.

“How about a ride then?” Lucy asks again.

She wants to say no. She should be saying no. She didn’t come here to make friends. She came to hide. To escape.

“Oh, thanks. But I’m okay,” Maggie says with a shake of her head.  “It’s not far. I don’t mind walking.”

Kara smirks. “You know, Lucy doesn’t let pretty girls walk home alone when it’s getting dark out.”

Maggie knows it’s meant to be a joke. A compliment even, but it stirs something within her so deep. A memory of being cornered by two men twice her size, saying something about pretty girls being out after dark, and the woman who had come to her rescue.

“Ana?”

She meets Kara’s eyes, and the other girl looks so earnest that Maggie can’t help but nod. “Okay.” She smiles, but her insides are churning, even as a part of her registers that Zoe is cheering in the backseat.

Reminding herself that she has no reason at all to be fearful of these people, she uses the rear tire as a step and grabs the roll bar to hoist herself up and into the backseat of the jeep next to the car seat. Kara turns enough to grab her by the wrist to help steady her, but she’s still reeling from her memories, so the action causes an immediate panic in her, and she yanks her arm back with a yelp, and stumbles back from the vehicle, landing on her ass in the dirt.

“Are you alright?” Lucy asks.

Kara is staring at her with wide, apologetic eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I guess my foot slipped,” Maggie tells her with a shaky smile. “I’m fine.” Her cheeks are burning as she stands and dusts her shorts off, and she feels like her heart is in her throat. Kara doesn’t move to help her the second time. “Thanks,” she tells them softly as she settles in the back seat.

“Do you want a sticker, Miss Ana?” Zoe questions beside her, and as quickly as it had come, the worst of her anxiety melts in the presence of the child beside her.

“Thank you,” Maggie whispers to her, accepting a sunshine sticker and watching as it’s pressed to the back of her trembling hand.

Kara immediately moves past it, and smiles like she’s as full of sunshine as the yellow sticker pressed to the skin of Maggie’s hand, launching in on plans for some party on the beach the coming weekend.

Maggie gets the sense that Lucy, like herself at the moment, is just hanging on for the ride with Kara, who seems completely at ease around the stranger in her girlfriend’s backseat, chatting like they’ve been friends for years.

They pass by Alex’s place, and they all wave at her as they pass when they catch sight of her carrying a few boxes into the store. Her hands are full, but she grins and tilts her chin up as a greeting.

“We’re starting in half an hour, Alex!” Kara yells to her as they pass by, making Alex stick out her tongue in reply.

Maggie forces herself not to spin in the seat just to gaze at her just a little longer.

Because she’s seriously the most beautiful woman Maggie has ever seen.

“You’ve met my sister, right?” Kara asks, twisting in her seat so she can face Maggie.

“I have. And this lovely little lady is yours?” she asks, gesturing to Zoe. She makes a face at the little girl next to her, earning a giggle. “I’ve seen her around the store, but I wasn’t sure who she belonged to.”

Kara nods, reaching for Lucy’s hand to press her lips to her knuckles. “Me and Lucy.” It’s then that she catches sight of the slim, diamond band that wraps around Kara’s ring finger, realizing the two in the front are married.

Maggie finds herself curious about the biology there instantly, but bites her tongue. Lucy grins at her in the rearview. “You can ask, you know.”

“You…adopted her?” Maggie asks a moment later.

“Nope,” Kara replies. “Before she moved back here, Alex was a big-time doctor in New York. She set us up with a colleague that allowed us to both have…,” she glances at Lucy when the words fail her, and her face scrunches in a rather adorable way, looking for all the world like she doesn’t want to say what was about to come out of her mouth.

“Genetic input,” Lucy smirks, saving Kara the trouble of finding the words.

“Exactly,” Kara says with a triumphant grin.

She’s not sure she has ever met a soul as pure as Kara Danvers.

“I didn’t think that was possible,” Maggie says. She’s sort of flabbergasted by this news, and the news that Alex was a doctor.

“If you’re willing to pay for it, it is,” Lucy says, reaching for Kara’s hand.

“It was…kind of tough,” Kara tells her. There’s a sad tone to her voice that’s so totally uncharacteristic.

“And painful,” Lucy reminds her, pulling Kara’s hand to her mouth to press her lips to each of Kara’s knuckles.

Kara turns to her again. “We lost our first.”

“What did you lose, Mommy?” Zoe asks earnestly.

“Nothing, baby,” Kara tells her, reaching for her toes, making her squeal. Her eyes turn back to Maggie. “Anyways, it took quite a few tries after before one stuck.”

“And then we got our little Bug,” Lucy says, her voice dripping with adoration, and the moment is made even sweeter when Kara’s face lights up like pure sunshine, beaming at Lucy.

It makes her ache.

She tunes out for a moment, and thinks about the information she’s just learned. Of course, her brain wonders about the Alex of it all. Does Alex moonlight as a doctor in town? Or did she give that all up to run the local store? What would bring Alex from New York to a small town in North Carolina?

“You should totally come, Ana,” Kara is saying, and Maggie tries to tune back into the conversation when she hears her fake name.

“Sorry, come to what?” Maggie asks.

“My birthday party on the beach,” Kara says, turning to face her with a wide grin.

Lucy smirks at her in the rearview mirror, and she can’t help but smile back. It’s pretty clear that Kara is used to getting what she wants, and not in a bitchy way, but more of a ‘I’ll bug you with hearts and flowers until you say yes’ kind of way

“Um, I’ll check my schedule,” Maggie says.

“Pfft,” Kara says, waving her off. “It’s gonna be going on long after we close anyways. No excuses for you, missy.”

Lucy pulls up to Maggie’s place and she smiles once more at the ball of sunshine in the passenger seat. “I’ll try. Thanks for the lift.”

“No problem,” Lucy says. “Any time.”

“Bye, sweetie!” Kara calls cheerfully as Lucy puts the jeep into drive and pulls away.

As she lies in bed that night Maggie finds herself thinking about dark hair that gleams red in the sun, and sparkling brown eyes that seem to twinkle whenever they’re together.

She knows she’s playing a dangerous game, giving anyone in this town so much thought, but she can’t help herself. She tries to tell herself that if she has to leave, it will only become that much harder if she has ties formed with anyone. But, she finds that she doesn’t care, and she can’t seem to help herself.

Alex and her family are working their way under her skin and she can’t seem to help it, no matter how hard she tries.


	6. Maggie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short answer? Maggie has a panic attack, then she has another panic attack because she might have to leave. Maggie-centric chapter ahead (in case you couldn't tell).

Henshaw’s by day and Henshaw’s by night are two totally different things. By day it’s a family-friendly seafood restaurant that caters to the tourists that pass through town every summer. It’s bright and breezy and the music is always light and cheery.

On weekend nights it transforms into a bar that’s frequented by all the locals. The lights are dimmer, the music is louder and the clientele is much more drunk.

Maggie hasn’t had to work any of the late weekend shifts yet. But she’s heard stories. She certainly prefers serving parents and their kids on the deck to drunk, groping asshats that don’t understand how to keep their hands to themselves. The money is a lot better, but she really isn’t keen on experiencing it firsthand.

She gets stuck covering a Friday night after she’s been in town for a while, after one of the other girls calls in sick. She’s still trying to prove herself to Henshaw, so when he asks if she’ll cover, she says yes with a wide, fake smile plastered to her face, and a pit of anxiety in her belly.

Kara is standing beside her when he asks, and she immediately sees right through her expression, taking on a bit of a panicked look herself once Henshaw is gone. “Do you want me to cover that shift tonight? Lucy and I don’t have any plans.”

“No,” Maggie tells her, forcing another smile even though her stomach feels like it’s in her throat. “I could use the money. It’s fine. Thanks.”

“It’s really not as bad as some people say,” Kara offers hopefully, though it’s clear she’s lying.

“I’ll be fine,” Maggie tells her. “It’s just a few drunks.”

“Lucy and I will stop by later to check on you,” Kara tells her.

“Kara, you don’t have to do that.”

“I insist,” Kara replies with a bright smile. “It’ll give me an excuse to get Alex out of the house, too.”

Maggie feels her insides involuntarily clench just at her name. Her mind immediately conjures images of Alex. Her eyes, her smile, the way the sunlight glints off her hair to highlight the red.

She shuts down that train of thought immediately, because she’s here to hide. Not to make friends, not to date. She’s still fucking married.

Before she can even reply to Kara, the blonde is calling out cheery goodbyes over her shoulder as she exits the restaurant, with promises to stop by later.

Maggie hangs her head because she knows she’s in for a long night.

 

A few hours later Maggie is behind the bar. She’s mostly popping tops on beers and pouring glasses of wine, leaving the complicated bar orders to the other bartender, a girl named Tina, who is young and cute and sweet, and all the regulars know her, so they mostly leave her alone.

She’s also trying very hard to keep a lid on her panic.

But the music is just a little too loud, and everyone is just a little too drunk, and she feels just a little too trapped behind the bar, within the crush of bodies. She can feel the panic pushing at her, like it’s got its own set of hands and it’s trying to claw through the very thin barrier keeping her from running out the front door and never turning back.

She almost drops two bottles when she hears several people cheer over near the front door, and when she looks up she sees Kara and Lucy, hugging several of their friends, with Alex making her way in behind them. She watches as Alex only hugs a select few, really just Winn and James, before she points towards the bar. She’s sort of grateful for the distraction.

And what a distraction Alex Danvers is.

In her old life, she would have swept that woman right off her feet.

It’s the thought of her old life that has the panic knocking again. Reminding her again why she’s here. She swallows hard and finishes up the drink order on her ticket, setting it on the tray in front of her.

“Ana!”

She looks up and finds herself face to face with Kara, Lucy and Alex. They’re all clearly done-up for a night out, hair and makeup done and all looking beautiful.

“Hey,” Maggie greets, genuinely happy that they actually made it out to see her.

“Ana!” Lucy greets happily. Her grin is lazy and eyes a little glassy. She’s clearly been drinking already. “Let’s do some shots! Six shots of patron please, Dimples.”

Maggie’s eyes narrow playfully at the nickname, and she ignores Lucy’s smirk, nodding and setting out the shot glasses, lining them up to pour them quickly. She hands over a salt shaker and sets some lime slices on a small plate and slides it across the bar surface as well.

She turns to fill a few orders, watching them out of the corner of her eye as she grabs a few beers from the cooler at the corner of the bar.

The girls remain at their seats at the corner of the bar for a while. More people flow in and someone dims the lights a hair more, and turns up the music just a little louder, and again Maggie feels the sinking panic feeling in her gut. She prays that she can just make it through this shift and get the hell out of here without completely losing her shit.

She tries to focus on the three girls that she would have called new friends in the past. They’re clearly there to see her, as they remain at the bar, engaging her in conversation any time there’s a lull, and Maggie is grateful for it. It keeps her mind distracted, but she can’t seem to completely quell the dull throb of fear that makes everything around her shimmer and almost seem unreal.

“Alex, you should let me set you up,” Lucy says after about an hour, and Maggie feels her stomach bottom out.

She can’t say she _isn’t_ interested in Alex. Who wouldn’t be? She’s beautiful and smart and kind and there’s real chemistry between them. But Maggie has to push it all aside because she can’t get too close. She can’t form ties with anyone here in case she has to run again. It would be too hard.

But the idea of someone else being the one to connect with Alex makes her ache a little. The idea that someone else could be the one to hold her hand, or kiss her, or love her makes Maggie far more jealous than she has any right to be.

Maggie’s eyes cut to Alex, to find dark eyes watching her, too. Maggie tries. She tries so hard to tune herself out of their very personal, private conversation, but she’s sort of dying to hear Alex’s response.

Alex swallows hard and turns back to Lucy. “Definitely not.”

Then Maggie catches the look that Alex shoots her way. The one that says she feels it, too. And it makes everything that much worse. Because she can’t do it. She can’t.

She won’t.

“Look around.” Lucy turns, elbows resting on the bar and tilting her chin to gesture towards the room. “I know for a fact that there are at least six women in this room that would _beg_ me to set them up with you.”

“Lucy,” Alex sighs. “No.”

“Okay, no dates. What about one of the ten that just want to bang you?”

“Ew,” Is all Kara says, and it’s all Maggie can do not to laugh. She bites her lip to keep a straight face, but one glance at Kara makes her realize she’s busted. They exchange a private grin, and Kara winks at her.

Alex chokes on her beer and slams it down on the counter too hard, making it fizz over at the top. She coughs and sputters and shakes her head. “Jesus, Lucy. That’s a ridiculous exaggeration.”

“It’s not. Come on, Alex!” Lucy whines. “You need to get laid.”

Alex simply glares at her, and gives her sister a look, prompting a big smile from Kara.

“Come on, Luce,” Kara says, pulling her away. “Let’s dance.”

Maggie makes her way over with a fresh beer and sets it next to the flat one, taking the other and tossing it.

“I don’t suppose there’s any way you didn’t hear any of that conversation?” Alex asks with a small smile.

“What conversation?” Maggie asks, playing along and wiping up a small puddle of beer Alex left behind.

Alex smiles gratefully and reaches for her fresh beer, making no move to join the other two on the dance floor where they’re talking more than dancing with Winn, James and a few others who happen to be off that night.

“I normally don’t take so much shit from Lucy, but the only time she can stand to be around me is when she’s drinking,” Alex says, staring at the label on her bottle, and Maggie feels her heart clench, because Alex is so kind and so beautiful, but she’s painting such a heartbreaking picture right now.

“Sorry,” Alex says, snapping out of it, offering a sort of melancholy smile that does nothing but break Maggie’s heart a little more. “I guess I get a little too chatty after a few, too.”

“It’s fine,” Maggie tells her.

“Are you doing alright?” Alex asks. She glances around. “Kara’s told me some of the horror stories about what this place turns into sometimes on the weekends. I’ve actually never been here on a Friday or Saturday night before.”

“Yeah,” Maggie replies, ducking her head to try to hide the smile, thinking about the fact that Alex is concerned about her does something to her insides. “I’m okay.”

Alex’s somber mood seems to have lifted, and she smiles that ridiculously charming half-smile, her lips sort of pursing to one side and Maggie feels her heart trip and stutter in her chest. “Good.”

 

About an hour later, she has to go to the storeroom to grab a box of straws and a box of napkins, and her hands are full as she pushes through the crowd to get back to the bar.

Someone slings a heavy arm over her shoulders and her knees nearly buckle with the surprise of it, her panic taking a sharp spike and making her head swim.

“Hey, you’re the new girl, right?”

He smells like cheap beer and bad cologne and he’s too close and too loud all at once. Maggie feels her panic burst wildly in her chest, spurring on her fight or flight response. The boxes tumble out of her hands and he’s talking again, but she can’t hear anything over the roaring in her ears and the pounding of her heart as she drops to her knees to clumsily pull the boxes back into her arms.

“Hey!” a voice calls out, and suddenly the tiny, but imposing form of Lucy Lane is before her, glaring at the man. “Keep your hands off her, Frank.”

Frank holds his hands up playfully and dances his way over to Lucy, pulling her into his arms to dance with him. “I was just saying hi to the new girl, Luce. You’re the only girl around here I want to dance with.”

Maggie spins around, desperate for the exit, boxes forgotten on the floor. She pushes through the employee entrance and sucks in deep, gasping breaths. Her head is spinning and her heart is thumping painfully against her ribs.

She’s only alone outside for a moment before the door is pushed open again, and she prays that whoever it is will just leave her alone, because she’s already totally humiliated that she freaked out so badly in front of so many people.

“Ana.”

Maggie shakes her head, fingers clutching the railing so hard that her knuckles turn white and her fingers ache. Her head is swimming and her heart is pounding.

Alex moves to stand next to her. “Panic attack?”

Maggie swallows thickly, and nods her head once, jaw clenching because the last thing she wants is anyone to see her like this.

“Come sit,” Alex coaxes softly, pointing to the bench nearby. “Put your head between your knees and breathe deep.”

“I’m okay,” she says, and she winces when even she can hear how shaky her voice sounds, how breathless, how terrified.

“Come on,” Alex murmurs. She stays right where she is, making no move to touch Maggie.

Maggie swallows hard and moves closer, taking a seat on the bench, bending at the waist to put her head between her knees.

“How much longer do you have?” Alex asks quietly after a minute of quiet breathing.

“An hour,” Maggie tells her. “I was first in.”

“We’re staying until you’re off, and we’ll take you home,” Alex tells her softly, leaving no room for argument.

Maggie nods, focusing on the cracks in the pavement, but her heart won’t settle and her vision still swims.

“Deep breaths,” Alex says softly.

Maggie sucks in three almost painfully deep breaths, letting them out slowly, before she finally sits upright.

“Tell me one thing you see, one thing you smell, and one thing that you feel,” Alex says. “You just need to ground yourself.”

Maggie swallows hard. “I see the cracks in the pavement. I can smell the salt in the air. I can feel the rough wood of the bench under my legs.”

“Focus on that,” Alex says. “Focus on your senses for a few minutes. Breathe in deep and focus on your senses.”

Maggie shakes off the worst of the panic and looks up at Alex, still standing a respectable distance away. She feels really embarrassed now that the worst of it is over. “I’m sorry.”

Alex shakes her head and takes a few steps closer. “Don’t ever apologize for a panic attack. We’ve all had them.”

“Thanks, Alex,” she says softly. She stands on shaky legs and exhales a deep puff of air. “I should get back to the bar. Tina’s going to kill me.”

“Kara’s covering until you get back,” Alex says, and it makes Maggie’s stomach sink. More than anything, she hates owning people. Especially when she has so little to give back.

Alex must read it all over her face, and she rolls her eyes, an adoring grin quirks her lips. “She loves it. She likes to pretend she’s Tom Cruise in Cocktail, and Lucy thinks it’s adorable. They’re fine. I promise.”

Maggie laughs at the image in her mind, and it’s enough of a distraction to ease the last of the dizzying panic.

Alex holds the door open for her and they make their way back to the bar, where Kara is flipping a glass in her hands. She sets it on the bar and gives the shaker a few good shakes. She spots Alex and Maggie and grins, mouthing the words ‘hippy hippy shake’ before she spins around and pours the drink to a cackling Lucy.

Alex nudges her gently. “See? Told you.”

Maggie grins sort of bashfully and mouths ‘thank you’ to Kara, who winks back at her.

“At least she hasn’t started trying to juggle yet,” Alex says wryly. “She won’t mind covering the rest of the night if you want me to take you home?”

Maggie feels her stomach swoop just hearing Alex say the words ‘want me to take you home’, but she shuts herself down, and shakes her head. “No. Thanks though. I’ll be okay.”

Alex watches her for a moment before nodding. “Okay. But we’re staying. And we’ll drive you home. Okay?”

Maggie nods. There’s a warmth that settles in her chest, because she really couldn’t have asked for sweeter people to meet in a new place. “Thanks, Alex.” “You got it.”

About an hour later the four of them are headed for Alex’s jeep, Kara holding up a stumbling Lucy.

“Holy shit,” Lucy slurs. “I haven’t been this drunk in a while. You should probably drive us, Ana. You’re the only one that wasn’t drinking.”

Maggie’s face flushes. “Oh. Um, I actually don’t have my license.”

“With you?” Lucy asks. She waves her off. “No big deal. The cops won’t care even if we do get pulled over.”

“No,” Maggie says. “Like at all.”

“How is that possible?” Lucy asks.

“Luce,” Alex sighs. “Come on. I can drive just fine.”

Lucy hands over the keys and Maggie keeps her eyes trained on the ground before her as she walks. She can’t believe what just came out of her mouth. She mentally berates herself for letting something so personal slip, knowing it’s information that could have her on the run before the sun even rises.

Alex pulls the passenger door open and impatiently waves Kara and Lucy into the backseat, where Lucy slumps into Kara’s lap with a groan. Maggie meets Alex’s eye once the seat is pushed back so she can slide into the front.

“Thanks,” she says softly.

Alex winks at her and closes the door carefully once she’s inside, and suddenly all of her anxiety melts away. Like in Alex’s presence nothing bad can happen to her. She realizes how dangerous that particular feeling is.

The drive is quiet, and Maggie realizes that Kara and Lucy have both fallen asleep in the back seat when Alex pulls the jeep up in front of her cottage.

“Thanks for everything tonight,” Maggie says quietly.

“Of course.” Alex nods, turning her body towards Maggie to look at her fully. Her head leans against the headrest and her eyes seem to drift down to Maggie’s lips.

Maggie’s lashes flutter just thinking about what Alex’s lips would feel like, would taste like, but just like every other time she thinks about something wonderful happening here, the little demon on her shoulder reminds her she’s hiding. And if she’s ever found, she’ll probably be killed.

Part of her is terrified by that knowledge. Knowing that if she’s ever found, her life will probably literally be over. Or it will be so miserable that she’ll wish it was.

But part of her is strangely satisfied thinking about how furious she must be that Maggie is still gone. How it must be killing her to know that she got away. How she’s probably turning Boston upside down trying to figure out where she went.

Alex’s eyes are on her lips again, and as badly as she wants to lean in and kiss her senseless, she smiles and wishes her a goodnight instead.

Alex waits until she’s inside before she drives off and Maggie finds herself with her forehead pressed against the door wondering how she’s going to hold off the feelings she most definitely has for Alex Danvers.

 

 

That night she can’t sleep.

She replays every moment that she spent with Alex and her stomach sinks when she thinks about how stupid she was when the illusion of feeling safe took over for a moment and she revealed the fact that she doesn’t have her license.

She’s kicking herself for revealing something so stupid to Lucy.

Her boss.

Lucy, who has access to her personnel file at the restaurant. Lucy, who could stroll into work the following day and look through the file and realize she has a fake ID. Lucy, who could expose her secret, maybe call the police. Maybe bring everything she’s been running from right to her doorstep.

So, she packs her things, stomach in knots, trying desperately not to cry.

It isn’t much, but she packs the duffel bag she picked up at Alex’s store with everything she owns and tucks all her spare cash away in one of the inside pockets.

She wants to run as soon as she’s finished packing, to be gone long before she’ll ever be found. But she can’t force herself to sling the bag over her shoulder and never look back. Something keeps stopping her.

The thought of some _one_ keeps stopping her.

Instead she dresses for work after nervously draining two cups of coffee.

She runs into Kara and Lucy at work, Lucy has on dark glasses and is drinking a cup of coffee at the bar. Kara is seated next to her reading the paper and drinking her own coffee, looking sunny as always.

A tendril of hope springs up inside her, because Lucy doesn’t look angry, she isn’t waiting with the police for her to get there. She looks hungover.

Lucy slides her shades down her nose long enough to regard Maggie with a tired, critical eye. “You look as bad as I feel. Did you sleep last night?”

“Not really,” Maggie says. Her stomach is still in knots, but they loosen every moment she stands there and nothing happens.

“Damn,” Lucy sighs. “And you didn’t even drink. Did you?”

“No,” Maggie replies quietly.

Lucy hums quietly to herself and sips from her mug. “Patron does me in every time. I don’t remember much.”

“Not even my hippy hippy shake,” Kara says with a pout. “I did that just for you.”

Lucy practically melts and leans over to press a lingering kiss to Kara’s cheek. “I know. I’m sorry, baby.”

“What _do_ you remember?” Maggie asks carefully. Another tiny sliver of hope has sprung up inside her and she thinks maybe. Maybe she won’t have to leave. Maybe she’ll be able to unpack this afternoon. Maybe this won’t blow up in her face.

Lucy’s brow pinches as she ponders the questions, sipping her coffee slowly. “I remember wanting to punch someone because they scared you. But I don’t remember who it was. And I don’t really remember much after that.” Lucy stares at her for a moment. “Are you alright?”

Maggie nods, relief flooding through her. “One of the regulars just wanted to say hi. No punching necessary.”

“Good to know,” Lucy says with a tired nod. “I’ve got your back, if it ever is.” She sighs and stands up. “Time to get to work, I guess.”

Kara and Lucy get up to head for the door, but Maggie lags behind for a moment. She takes a second to herself to really think about how happy it makes her that she doesn’t have to leave.

A smile splits her lips before she can help it.

“What has you so happy this morning?” Kara asks softly as Lucy steps inside before her. “Did you meet someone last night?” Suddenly she’s waving at someone over Maggie’s shoulder.

Maggie glances back to find Alex walking towards her store and she waves as well, unable to help the butterflies that seem to spring up in her belly when Alex’s grin widens upon seeing her. “Nope. Not last night,” she murmurs quietly to herself.

Maggie turns back to meet Kara’s gaze and just shakes her head. Kara watches her for a moment, a bit of a grin quirking her lips too, and she reaches a hand out for Maggie.

“Come on, we have lots to do.”

Maggie reaches her and lets herself be pulled inside and into the whirlwind of her new life.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a muted response to this one...should I continue? Please let me know!


	7. Maggie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another short Maggie chapter. Bonding with Kara. This one is based more on the book than the movie.

A few nights later there’s a knock on her door, and it startles her so badly that she nearly drops her mug of coffee all over the floor. She stands frozen in the middle of the room, trying to reason with herself that if someone had finally found her after all this time they wouldn’t have knocked. They would have burst in and snatched her away before she could even call for help.

There’s another knock and a faint, “Ana?” through the door. She recognizes Kara’s voice and breathes a sigh of relief, forcing her fear-stiffened legs to the door to push it open.

She can’t help the smile that tugs at her lips when she sees the earnest, wide smile of Kara Danvers on her porch. She’s dressed down, her hair in lazy curls spilling over her shoulders and she has a bottle of wine in one hand and a paper bag in the other.

“Hi, Kara,” she greets.

“Hi,” Kara smiles rather sheepishly, knowing she wasn’t exactly invited over and she holds out the wine. “Sorry to drop in unannounced. I was going to call, but I don’t have your number. I was thinking since we’re both off tonight we could have a drink?” She seems to sense Maggie’s hesitation and she smiles earnestly and holds up the bag. “I brought snacks?”

Maggie can’t help but smile and holds the door open wider. “Come on in.”

Other than Alex, Maggie finds she enjoys Kara’s company the most of every new person she’s met since she’s been in town. Kara is easy-going and sweet, but Maggie is also smart enough to know that also makes her the most dangerous person for her to be around.

Kara has the ability to completely disarm her. She’s done it several times since Maggie came to town. All of a sudden, Maggie finds every wall and every defense dropped in the company of the younger Danvers.

Maggie moves to one cupboard and pulls two mugs from the shelf. She glances at Kara apologetically. “Sorry, these are all I have.”

Kara waves her off easily. “Those are great.”

She tasks Kara with opening and pouring the wine as she tackles the bag of snacks. She lays out the crackers and cuts up the cheese into cubes and sets grapes out on the tray as well. Plus she adds a few of her own snacks to the mix and sets it all out on the small table.

Kara holds her glass up with a playful smile that Maggie can’t help but return, and she clinks the edge of her mug to Kara’s.

The wine is good; not too sweet, and it goes down easily, and the conversation is even better. Maggie hasn’t had a drink in months, so it seems to go straight to her head, and she’s got a bit of a buzz after just one mug.

“So, what do you think of Alex?” Kara asks not-so-subtly about an hour later. She pops a grape in her mouth and then a slice of cheese.

Maggie can’t help the smile that twitches across her lips, because Kara is quite possibly the most adorable human she’s ever met, and also because thinking about Alex brings a smile to her face regardless.

“Alex is great.”

Kara’s lips twitch and she stares down at her mug, a soft sort of affection on her face as she thinks. “I lost my parents when I was thirteen. They died in an accident, and my cousin - who is my only living relative, and was too young to take care of me - knew the Danvers’, and he brought me to them. Alex is so smart, and she had this whole life planned. And then all of a sudden she had a little sister to look out for, and her mother was sort of hard on her any time something happened to me. But her whole life has been about making sure I’m okay. Until she left for medical school.” Kara shakes herself out of her musing and smiles up at Maggie. “My point is that Alex has always put other people first. And she deserves to be happy. And she’s one of the best people I’ve ever met – and I’m not just saying that because she’s my big sister.”

“I’m so sorry about your parents,” Maggie says quietly.

Kara shrugs, smiling with a sort of melancholy that is rarely seen on her face. “It was a long time ago.

“I envy you and Alex,” Maggie says softly. “Your relationship.”

“No siblings?” Kara asks, sipping her wine.

Maggie shakes her head. “No. I never knew my mother and my father died of a heart attack when I was twenty.”

“I’m so sorry,” Kara says.

“We weren’t particularly close,” Maggie finds herself saying.

It’s like now that she’s opened her mouth she can’t seem to shut up. It’s the wine. It’s always made her chatty. Until she’d had her nose broken for talking too much. She hadn’t had a sip since.

She can’t figure out what compels her to say what comes out of her mouth next. She wonders if maybe it’s because she starts to think about the fact that she’s not particularly close to anyone. She hasn’t been. Not since _her_.

All she does know is that she will spend the next several days dissecting every second of her and Kara’s conversation to figure out exactly why her mouth opens at all.

“I had a friend once who was in a bad marriage. She couldn’t talk to anyone. She would be hit, and in the beginning she swore if it happened again she would leave. There were apologies and promises that it would never happen again, but it only got worse after that. She was caught talking to a neighbor walking his dog, and she was thrown into a mirror. There were always tears and apologies, especially when there were marks left on her arms or her back, but in the same breath she was told she deserved it or that if she’d been more careful none of it would have happened.”

Maggie feels the sting of tears and the burning in her throat trying to keep them back, but she feels the slide of them drop over her cheeks.

“She tried to get away. She ran. Twice. Once she came back because she had nowhere else to go, and the second time she was dragged back and a gun was held to her head. She was told if she ever ran away again, she would be killed. Anyone she ever loved would be killed.”

“The phones were monitored, she wasn’t allowed to have a driver’s license. She had no access to any money. She started to steal. Just a dollar or two at a time. Or the change from the couch cushions, or the washing machine. Any spare dime, she would hide in a plastic bag in a flower pot. She was terrified that it would be found before she could escape. She needed as much money as she could get, so she could get as far away as possible.”

Maggie looks up when she realizes that Kara is suddenly sitting right next to her, holding her hand and watching her with a soft sort of sadness.

“Your friend has a lot of courage,” Kara whispers.

“No,” Maggie insists, her voice shaking, “she’s scared all the time.”

“That’s what courage is,” Kara tells her, squeezing her hand gently. “Being scared and doing it anyways. I admire what she did.”

Maggie sobers. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Kara says with a wink. “I’m great with secrets.”

Kara stays another hour or so.

They chat about much safer topics, like Henshaw’s and Zoe and Lucy, and Maggie is sure that she keeps her mouth in check. Then before she knows it, Kara is hugging her. It’s been so long since she’s had someone hug her like this that she sort of falls into it, letting Kara squeeze her tightly.

“Thanks for tonight,” Kara says as she releases her.

Maggie feels tears threatening again and she wrings her hands. “You shouldn’t walk home in this condition.”

Kara laughs and points out the front door where Lucy’s beat up orange jeep is sitting in front of her cottage. “Lucy would never allow it.”

Lucy catches sight of them and waves, but stays in the vehicle, content to let them say goodbye privately.

Maggie watches Kara blow a kiss Lucy’s way, and it makes her ache a little. She wants what Kara and Lucy have so badly, but she knows that kind of love requires the deepest sort of trust, and she honestly isn’t sure she’s even capable of it again.

“You’re okay, right?” Kara asks her softly, touching her wrist gently.

“Mmm,” Maggie hums with a nod. “Thanks, Kara. Tell Lucy hi.”

Kara grins. “I will. Good night.”

“Night.”

Maggie watches her until she’s safely in the passenger seat of the jeep, and Lucy waves at her one more time before driving off.

She lies in bed that night thinking for several hours. She thinks about how suddenly Kara knows too much. Not that she worries about the other girl ever revealing anything they talked about to any one else. But Kara still knows more than she ever dreamed of telling another living soul.

She thinks about Alex – of course. She thinks about how she’s on a very slippery slope with the other woman. She knows there’s an attraction there, and she’s nearly certain that it’s mutual. But would Alex ever want her if she ever truly knew the deepest, darkest parts of her past? It gives her a stomach ache thinking about it.

And she thinks about how she’s in so far over her head in this town.

She came to escape. To disappear. To cut all ties and keep her distance.

She rolls over in bed with a deep sigh as she thinks about how epically she failed to keep her distance as her mind conjures up images of Alex and Kara and Lucy and Zoe.

And she falls asleep thinking of them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stick with me, kids. I said slow burn and I meant it. But I'm several chapters ahead and it's getting steamy and intimate and really sweet (if I do say so). I promise it's coming.


	8. Alex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Lucy have a chat about the town newcomer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick (and short; sorry!) update for the weekend. More Maggie next.

Alex is pretending not to watch the way Ana crouches down next to Zoe and the two of them have a very animated chat about whatever it is that Zoe is drawing. She watches the way Ana’s eyes crinkle in the corners and the way her dimples flash with every smiling word.

She’s stunning.

She finds that she spends most days hoping Ana will walk through her doors and spend a few minutes with her. Alex is smitten, that much is for sure. She would be crazy not to be. Ana is sweet, and so kind, and so beautiful that it’s nearly maddening for Alex to keep her distance. And she promised herself she would. She promised she wouldn’t impose.

The door swings open and Lucy makes her way in. She seems to catch Alex’s eye-line and smirks as she makes her way over.

“Eye on the prize, Danvers?”

There’s a warmth and a sort of softness to Lucy that’s been missing for ages, and Alex finds herself basking in it. She almost aches for Lucy’s friendship sometimes, and at the moment it would almost appear that Lucy does, too.

“Shut up,” Alex replies teasingly, rolling her eyes and going back to the paperwork still spread across the counter.

Lucy leans a hip against the counter, eyes sweeping over the paperwork. She presses her index finger to one particular column.   “That should be 137.”

Alex’s brow furrows as she does the mental math and realizes Lucy is right. “Thanks. What’s up, Luce? You’re hovering.”

Lucy clearly takes the words as a dismissal, and she stares at Alex for a long moment, making Alex press her lips together tightly, wishing she could take the words back. The warmth that was so present moments ago is suddenly gone, and it makes Alex frown.

“I want to know what you really think of her,” Lucy says, her eyes - and expression - going chilly again.

Alex sighs as the moment passes, and her lips purse as she considers the question, leaning against the counter on both elbows, giving her friend her full attention. “Why?”

Lucy shrugs, grabbing a bag of skittles from a nearby shelf and tearing the bag open to pop a few in her mouth. She won’t meet Alex’s gaze. “Because I think she’s hiding something. Something big.”

Alex shrugs, her eyes cutting to the pair still outside. “So what if she is? Everyone has secrets.”

Lucy sighs and moves to the counter next to Alex. “I want to know that she is someone I can trust my daughter to be around.”

Alex rolls her eyes and tries to steal a few red skittles from the handful Lucy is picking through. “Ana wouldn’t hurt anyone. She shooed a spider out of here the other day because she didn’t want anyone to kill it.”

Lucy’s eyes narrow, batting Alex’s hand away, unable to help the smile that skirts her lips. But it’s gone as quickly as it had appeared. “Could be part of her cover.”

“Very elaborate cover,” Alex argues. She shakes her head and gives up on the candy, going back to her papers. “Spiders are disgusting. No way it’s a cover.”

Lucy’s lips twitch again, but her eyes remain steely. “What if she’s a serial killer, Alex?”

“Do you hear yourself?” Alex asks rhetorically. “You do watch the news at night, right? Have you heard of any serial killers on the loose in eastern North Carolina lately? Besides, statistically, women only account for about 15 percent of serial killers. Chances are _really_ slim.”

Lucy fixes her with a look. “I’m serious, Alex.”

Alex sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose, massaging there to try to keep her headache from getting any bigger. “So am I, Luce. And you honestly don’t believe she’s dangerous. Do you? I think deep down you know exactly what she’s hiding. Because I think I do too.”

“Unfortunately for her, I think you’re right.” Lucy stares at Alex for a moment, then glances out the door and stares at Ana for several moments. “Should we talk to her?”

“No.” Alex had seen her share of women in trouble when she’d been on rotations at Duke. “She’s removed herself from the situation, and she clearly feels safe enough to stay here. We should leave her alone, because that’s clearly all she wants.”

“I have a hard time believing that she’s going to be left alone,” Lucy mumbles, her dark eyes turn sympathetic once she seems to accept what she’s been thinking about the town’s newcomer all along. “She’s way too beautiful to just blend in. And I’ve seen the way you look at her. The way she looks at you. And we both know I married a human puppy who is completely incapable of leaving lonely souls to their own devices.”

“All true,” Alex agrees.

Lucy smirks. “So you admit it then? That you like her?”

“You’ve seen her, right?” Alex asks, then grows serious. “If I thought for a moment that Ana wasn’t safe, I wouldn’t let Zoe spend another moment with her. But you and I both know that’s not the case.”

“I know,” Lucy relents, a little too easily. She casts another glance over her shoulder where Ana is grinning at Zoe, a huge, easy, dimpled smile on her face and she flicks Alex in the arm. “Ask her out.”

“No,” Alex replies almost before the words are totally out of Lucy’s mouth. “I feel like she’s just starting to settle and feel comfortable. I don’t want to scare her away.”

“You’re such a pessimist,” Lucy grumbles, and she’s suddenly distracted by Kara’s arrival out front. “Why do you automatically assume you would do anything but make her life better?”

Alex watches her sister approach as well. She and Ana greet each other casually and Alex feels a bite of jealousy when Kara pulls her into an easy hug. She watches the way Ana’s slender arms wrap around Kara’s frame, and once Kara releases her, her hand remains on Ana’s arm, squeezing gently.

“They’re awfully friendly,” Alex mumbles.

Lucy watches the other two for a moment before she nudges Alex and gives her a wry look. “Jesus, Danvers. You’re seriously going to be jealous of your sister? My wife? They’re friends. They shared a bottle of wine last night, and Kara came home drunk off her ass. It’s a good thing.” She smirks. “Trust me when I say you want your future wife to get along with your sister.”

When Alex’s eyes cut to Lucy, she finds the shorter woman grinning at her cheekily, tongue pressed between her teeth. Her glare deepens, but her lips twitch.

Finally Alex sighs, heavy and resigned. “I can’t. I won’t.”

Lucy stares at her for a moment, seeming to understand that Alex is really trying to say. Lucy nods slowly and gives her friend a sad smile. “You deserve happiness, Alex. All of it.”

Alex scoffs, her mood darkening around the edges. She’s hurt, and confused by Lucy’s see-sawing moods, and yes; she’s more than a little jealous. “Yeah, well last time I tried, my parents died and my best friend stopped talking to me, so maybe happy is overrated.”

Lucy’s eyes widen marginally before a soft sort of understanding passes through her eyes, and she nods, sighing and taking a step back towards Kara. “Guess I’ll see you around, Danvers.”

“See ya, Luce,” Alex says softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Comments? Kudos? I like 'em all! Happy Friday!


	9. Maggie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex is sweet. Maggie gets triggered. A little angst, then a little anxiety, then an invite...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had one too many debates with myself about how to break up the next few parts of this story. It was either one little Maggie chapter that went by itself nicely, and then a few longer sections that went together nicely, or break up the longer sections right in the middle so you only get two Maggie chapters back to back instead of three. Anyways, I opted for the latter, so here's another Maggie chapter for your enjoyment. I swear there are some payoffs coming. Just stick with me. it's not only a romantic slow burn that I'm after here.

The little bell over the door signals her arrival, and Alex’s face appears from behind one of the shelves that she appears to be stocking.

“Hi,” Alex says. Her smile is kind, and it’s warm, and it makes Maggie’s insides twist with an odd sort of anticipation that she can’t seem to shake. “Your paint arrived this morning, by the way. I was going to call you, but I never got your number.”

“Don’t have one,” Maggie says with a shrug, hoping Alex will ignore how odd it is for someone in this day and age to not have a cell phone.

“Want me to load it in the jeep?” Alex offers, hoping she doesn’t sound like an over-eager teenager asking the prettiest girl in school to the dance. “I’ll give you a lift?”

Maggie holds both hands up. “Oh, no. Thanks, Alex, but I’ll just walk it home.”

“It’s kind of heavy,” Alex tells her.

Maggie opens her mouth to decline the offer again, when she catches sight of the two cans of paint, and she realizes she probably won’t be able to walk them home herself.

“Thanks,” she replies finally. “That would be great.”

Alex grins and grabs both cans, pushing out the back door where her jeep is parked.

Maggie goes about her shopping, and as she’s standing comparing two bottles of shampoo, the door opens and people flood in. Her blood runs cold as she realizes a bus has arrived, and there’s no telling who may have arrived on it.

As her body seizes, her mind whirls at a million miles an hour, trying to figure out the chances that _she’s_ figured out what bus Maggie got on weeks ago, and where she got off. She tells her self that the chances are one in thousands, but still tries to make herself scarce until they’re gone.

She does her best to make herself small in an isle near the back of the store, knowing everyone will be gone within five minutes, and just as she’s contemplating hiding in the restroom, two men turn the corner of the isle and seem to lock on to her. They exchange a grin, and one of them winks at her.

Her palms begin to sweat, and she can feel her heart pounding painfully in her chest.

“Hey there, honey,” one of them says. He’s wearing a faded black t-shirt and jeans with smudges on each knee. His face sports a stubble that could have passed as a 5 o’clock shadow 24 hours ago, and his hair is hidden under a black baseball hat.

Maggie swallows hard and takes a step back. She tries to open her mouth to say something, anything polite so she can get the hell out of this store, but her mouth has gone dry and her tongue sticks to her teeth.

“Pretty mouth, but nothing to say?” the other one says. He takes a few steps closer to her, hooking his thumbs into his belt.

“Excuse me,” she finally says, and she gathers all her courage and steps forwards, towards them to push past them, but one grasps her arm.

“Where you runnin’ off to, darlin’?” the one in the hat asks.

The touch catches her off guard and she jumps, knocking her elbow into the shelf and sending the items flying. They scatter across the floor, catching the attention of several people around them.

“Hey!” a voice suddenly chimes in. But it sounds far away. Maggie’s vision is swimming, her hearing dimming until all she can hear is her heartbeat roaring in her ears.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” And suddenly Alex is there. Maggie feels the relief break through the weight that’s settled on her chest.

“Oh relax, honey,” Baseball hat says again. He’s suddenly reaching for Alex. “We’re just- OW!”

Alex has his hand twisted behind him, tugging his arm up and making him squeal before he can take another step. This catches the attention of everyone in the store that wasn’t already watching, but Alex ignores them. She leans in close to him. “I want you to get the hell out of my store. And if you ever lay hands on my customers again, I’ll make sure you don’t walk right for a week.”

“You bitch!” he cries, yelping again when his arm is twisted higher.

Alex glares darkly at the other man. “Take your buddy and get the hell out.”

“You gonna make us?” his friend snarls.

Suddenly James is standing behind Alex, close enough that his crossed arms press gently against the back of her shoulder, quietly reminding her that he’s there.

“Alex certainly has it covered, but I’d be glad to help,” James says calmly.

The second man gulps, looking between his buddy and Alex and James, and he nods once, reaching out to Baseball hat to tug him away.

James moves to follow them out and head back to the register and Alex spins and finds Maggie holding on to a shelf for dear life, bent at the waist, free hand on her knee, her breathing labored and her eyes clamped shut.

“Ana?” Alex calls quietly. She reaches out slowly.

The moment she’s touched, Maggie recoils like she’s been shot, and she flinches violently again, banging her elbow into the shelf and sending several bottles across the aisle.

“Shit,” she curses softly. She crouches to pick them up, and Alex is there beside her.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine!” Maggie finally snaps, banging one of the shampoo bottles against the shelf, making several more people glance their way. “I had it under control,” she says a little quieter, keenly aware of every set of eyes in the store watching her.

Alex is clearly stunned by her outburst. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to help.”

“Why don’t you mind your own damn business next time,” Maggie snaps.

Alex blinks and hurt flashes across her features, and it makes Maggie’s stomach turn, but she doesn’t need this. She knows how this story ends. And she refuses to do it again.

She drops her basket in the middle of the isle and storms out of the store, leaving a stunned Alex staring after her.

 

 

Later that night, the restaurant is about to close, and she’s carrying a large white paper bag containing a take-out order to the front when she sees something that literally stops her heart. She never thought a little glinting piece of metal could cause a cardiac arrest. But this glinting piece of metal is pinned to a man’s shirt, has five points and a title that scares the hell out of her.

The sheriff.

She immediately backs out of sight, hugging the bag against her chest.

“Ana, are you okay?” Kara asks as she approaches. She looks like she’s caught between being amused at Maggie’s behavior, and being concerned for her.

Maggie forces a smile. “Fine.”

“Ana!” Henshaw calls, startling her into banging her elbow into a stack of cups and saucers, making them rattle precariously.   Luckily none tip over and break, but it’s a close call and Henshaw’s eyes go comically wide.

Maggie ignores the fact that Kara sends her another concerned glance, and she turns, holding the bag before her like a shield.

“Do you have Sheriff Lord’s order?” Henshaw asks.

Ana swallows hard, and smiles again as she approaches. Lord’s face is warm enough as she approaches, but she can’t help but feel that he – like every other person in this town – is trying to stare down into her soul to figure out what she’s doing in their town.

“We haven’t met,” he says, holding his hand out. “Maxwell Lord. I’m the Sheriff.”

“Hi,” she greets, praying she can keep her voice from wavering and her hand from shaking as she takes his. “Ana.”

“New in town?” he asks.

“Yes, sir,” she replies. She gestures over her shoulder. “I’m sorry, I have a table. But it was nice to meet you.”

He gazes at her for a moment and nods. “You too, Ana. Hope you stick around.”

She makes her way around the corner to the drinks station out of sight from customers, closes her eyes and presses her hand against her chest.

“Ana!”

She jumps again at the sound of Kara’s voice from behind her. She curses and turns, trying to steady her nerves.

“You okay?” Lucy asks, gazing at her for a long moment. She glances at something over Maggie’s shoulder for a moment and then back to her.

“Yeah,” Maggie breathes. She swipes a hand across her lips, and takes a breath to try to steady her racing heart.

“Hey, we’re gonna grab a drink,” Kara says, cheerful smile on her face, totally oblivious to the tension. As usual. “Wanna join us?”

“You look like you could use one,” Lucy points out, still watching her curiously.

“I shouldn’t,” Maggie replies with a smile, even as her fingers twitch at the thought of a strong drink to take the edge off. “I’m worn out. I’ll probably just crash.”

Lucy sighs. “Ana, you are way too young and way too hot to sit at home every night. Let us set you up with a hot guy.” Maggie makes a face, and ignores the way Kara perks up like a puppy at the thought of setting her up. “Or girl?” she amends with a smirk.

“That’s okay,” Maggie tells them. “I’m not really ready to date.”

“Is that why you left Richmond?” Kara asks curiously. “Bad relationship?”

“Babe,” Lucy shushes. “Don’t be rude.”

“Luce, that’s not rude, it’s curious,” Kara tells her with a cheeky grin. She turns to Maggie. “Besides, you don’t mind, do you?”

Maggie does her best to laugh it off, but it sounds hollow even to her. She desperately tries to think of anything to change the subject, and she feels Lucy’s eyes practically staring right through her. “Actually, a drink sounds good. Where should I meet you?”

 

Up next?  Maggie goes for a few drinks with Kara and Lucy.  Lucy is hella insightful.  Alex shows up.

Then an Alex chapter to follow where she happens to take her favorite four-year-old to lunch, where a certain dimpled girl-on-the-run happens to work.  (spoiler alert: this is where the story really starts to get meaty.  Please stay tuned.  I swear it's coming.  I just had to lay a super fat foundation down for it.  And let me know what you thought!)

 


	10. Maggie

When she gets back to her cottage she finds her paint cans sitting on the edge of her porch, and she feels a stab of regret for the way she acted earlier. She sighs and drops down next to the cans on the steps.

Every day being around Alex is getting harder and harder to not give in and let herself feel something for her. And she feels awful for the way she acted, but she can’t get too close, even though it’s exhausting keeping her distance.

She’s already so tired. Tired of running, tired of being terrified that _she’s_ going to jump out of the shadows and snatch her away, terrified that she’ll never get to tell Alex how she feels.

She drops the cans just inside the door and changes into a pair of skinny jeans, worn through in each knee that she folds up a few rolls over her ankles. She pulls on a tank top and slides flip flops onto her feet before she heads for the coffee can. She counts out the cash inside, including her tips from the day and figures she has enough to splurge on a drink, maybe two if they’re cheap enough.

She glances out the window and realizes she doesn’t have much time before the sun goes down to get to her destination, so she gets moving. She steps outside and locks the door behind her and heads off down the street.

When she arrives she sees Kara waving her over to a booth that she and Lucy already occupy half of. She holds up a finger and heads for the bar to grab a beer before she makes her way to the table, scooting in across from the couple.

“Hey,” Maggie greets as she sits down.

Kara turns to Maggie. “So, tell us everything.”

Maggie nearly chokes on her beer, and she fumbles for a napkin to press to her chin where she’s sputtered a bit. “Sorry.” She clears her throat. “There’s not really much to tell.”

“Why’d you move?” Kara asks. She leans back in the booth as a few plates are placed on the table before them with the usual bar fare and Maggie feels her stomach rumble. Kara stuffs a nacho in her mouth and waves her hand over the food casually, inviting Maggie to help herself, making Maggie smile tightly, mentally calculating her portion of the food if she decides to eat something.

She doesn’t.

Maggie takes another sip of her drink, to try to curb her hunger, and it gives her a moment to get her story straight, and she tries to ignore the way Lucy is looking at her. “I just needed a change of pace.”

“Well, I can’t imagine anywhere on Earth moving as slowly as we do here,” Kara mumbles as she stuffs a few more nachos in her mouth. “But we love it. Right, babe?”

Maggie turns the tables then and asks the other two questions about how they met, and how long they’ve been together, and she suddenly sees an entirely new side to the usually-so-stoic Lucy, who softens around the edges and totally melts under the weight of Kara’s gaze. It’s really quite sweet.

“I gotta pee,” Kara announces after her third round, and she’s up and out of the booth before the other two can even respond.

“You know I sort of have a super power,” Lucy says conversationally, but Maggie can’t help but hear what almost sounds like a warning in the undercurrents of her tone.

Maggie stares at her for a moment, like she’s trying to decide if Lucy is just playing around. But the other girl remains stoic. “Seriously?”

“No one but Kara knows what I’m about to tell you,” Lucy says slowly, like she’s choosing her words carefully. She picks at the label of the beer bottle cradled between both her hands. “Not even Alex. And I’d really like to keep it that way.”

Maggie realizes that the other girl is waiting for some sort of acknowledgement of her statement, so she nods. “Of course.”

“I moved here from D.C. I had a job there working for my father; I had a lot of friends. I had a life. A really nice life.” Lucy pauses and sips her drink. “Then I met this guy. We didn’t make it through one date because he totally creeped me out. But he became sort of…obsessed with me. He stalked me for weeks. He would call me and know everywhere I’d been that day, and he had pictures of me in situations he shouldn’t have. He sent me flowers and other gifts, and one night I came home from work and he was in my apartment.” She laughs humorlessly when Maggie gasps. “But there was nothing I could do. His father was wealthy, and really influential. I tried to get a restraining order, but I was laughed out of court. I felt helpless and terrified. That’s when I started taking self-defense classes. I installed some hidden cameras in my apartment, and the next time I found him in my place I kicked his ass so badly that he barely remembered his name. Then he was arrested because I had proof of him breaking in and putting his hands on me.”

Maggie can literally feel her heart pounding against her chest, and she’s desperately trying not to let her panic show, so she swallows down the rest of her drink and holds her hand up for another.

“My point is that I took control,” Lucy says, leaning across the table, her voice dropping low and intense. “I was afraid, so I took control of the situation and now I’m not afraid of anyone.” She punctuates the last word by slapping her palm on the table, startling Maggie again.

“Why are you telling me this?” Maggie asks, staring into the bottom of her empty bottle, grateful that they both seem to be ignoring the way her voice wavers.

“My super power,” Lucy says, her voice suddenly softening, but lowering so it’s quiet and private, “Is being able to spot broken people. I’ve been there, and I know what it looks like. To Kara, you look sad and kind of lonely. To me, you look scared. And you don’t have to be.”

“I think you’re seeing what you want to see,” Maggie tells her, twisting her beer bottle in circles on the table, unable to meet her eyes.

“All I’m saying,” Lucy says, she glances up over Maggie’s shoulder before meeting her eyes again, “Is that if you ever want to learn how to fight back, I’ll be happy to help.” She holds her gaze, softening again. “And I won’t ever ask. But if you want to talk about anything, I’ll always listen.”

Lucy pulls back to sit upright and grins at Kara as she reclaims her seat.

“So, you’re coming to my birthday thing on Saturday, right Ana?” Kara asks.

Maggie ponders the idea for a moment and thinks maybe it’s time to not be so scared, so she nods. “I’ll be there.” She glances up and finds Lucy looking at her with a hint of pride in her smile.

An hour, and one drink later, Maggie feels buzzed. Not in an out of control scary kind of way, but the warm, smiley kind of buzzed that she loves. Kara and Lucy are about five drinks in, and Kara is telling a story about how Lucy and Alex went streaking across Duke’s campus, when Lucy perks up across the table from her.

“Alex!” she calls, waving a hand at who she can only assume is Alex behind her.

Maggie can’t help the way her face instinctively scrunches up thinking about their last encounter that left her yelling at Alex in the middle of her store.

Kara seems to pick up on her mood and leans in. “Everything okay, Ana? I figured Alex could drive us home. I know _I_ can’t drive.”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Maggie chokes out. “But I should settle up and go home.”

“There’s no way you’re walking home alone after you’ve been drinking,” Alex is saying as she takes the seat next to her. There is zero warmth in her voice and it makes Maggie shift uncomfortably in her seat.

“Hi, Alex.”

“Ana.”

Kara looks completely crestfallen at the tension between them. Lucy seems strangely amused by it.

Then an odd sort of silence works its way over the table. It stretches on for what feels like eternity, but in reality, is really only a minute or two.

“Well, this is super awkward,” Lucy finally says, slapping the table and making everyone else jump. “And normally I’d love to stick around for it, but I want to dance with my girl so you two can figure your shit out.” She reaches for Kara. “Come on, baby.”

Kara and Lucy vacate their seats, and one of them gives Maggie’s shoulder a gentle squeeze as they pass behind her.

They sit in more horrible, awkward silence for a few minutes, Alex silently glowering, and Maggie searching for the words to make Alex understand without giving too much away.

“Excuse me,” Alex says to the passing waiter. “Can I get the tab please?” She holds up her card. “All of them.”

“Alex,” Maggie protests immediately, but Alex cuts her off with a sharp look.

Maggie hates owing people. Especially people who are mad at her.

Once he’s gone, Maggie sighs into her drink. “You didn’t have to do that. But thank you.”

There’s another long stretch of silence between them before Maggie finally decides to bite the bullet.

“I’m sorry about the way I acted,” Maggie says softly. “I never should have yelled at you when you were just trying to help me out.”

“Why _did_ you yell at me?” Alex asks, sounding equal parts curious and frustrated. “All I know is that I looked up and they had you cornered and you looked _terrified_. I didn’t even think; I just reacted.”

Maggie is quiet for a moment, and she’s fighting back tears, because last time ended so horribly bad. Last time someone saved her it ruined her entire life. Last time it nearly killed her. She blinks and one fat tear slips down through her lashes and over her cheek. She swipes at it hastily, hoping no one else saw her crying into her bottle.

“Hey,” Alex says softly, reaching for her hands. Some of the warmth is back, but it’s nowhere near normal. Alex pauses just before their hands make contact.   “You don’t have to tell me anything. But I’ll listen to anything you want to say.”

“I _was_ scared,” Maggie tells her quietly, not meeting her eyes. “And I _was_ cornered, and I’m sorry about the way I reacted. But the last time someone came to my rescue-“

“Here we are,” the waiter interrupts, breaking the moment as he sets the tab on the table.

“Thanks,” Alex replies, her eyes never leaving Maggie. A quiet sort of understanding has settled over her features. And while that understanding scares Maggie to death, it also settles her in a way she never quite expected.

Maggie holds her gaze, trying to convey how sincere she is, and she reaches between them to slide shaking hands over the ones Alex still has extended towards her. Her hands are soft, yet slightly calloused, and they’re so warm. And they hold hers so carefully. “I’m really sorry, Alex.”

Alex searches her gaze for another few moments before she nods, smiling warmly back at her. “I am, too.” She nods her head towards Kara and Lucy dancing and giggling across the room. “Come on, help me collect those two, and we can get out of here.”

Alex quickly signs the paper receipt and leaves it on the table, reaching for Maggie’s hand again, but again letting Maggie be the one to close the remaining distance between them.


	11. Alex

Life with a four-year-old is exhausting. Even when it’s only part time. But it’s also ridiculously fun. It also doesn’t give her too much time to dwell on her encounter with Ana. She’s seen Ana a handful of times since the ride home, and it’s been courteous, but Alex tries to give her some space.

Alex loves being Zoe’s aunt. She finds Zoe sort of fascinating. She’s sweet and funny and generous, just like Kara, but bold and has flashes of Lucy’s takes-no-shit attitude at times as well.

Whenever Alex babysits, she loves to let Zoe pick out her own clothes, and today is no exception, so the little girl is wearing a bright yellow shirt (because it looks like the sun), a tutu, pink pants, and green spotted rain boots. Her hair is done in two pigtails that Alex did herself, and has to admit they’ve gotten much better over the last few months.

Zoe decides that she would like her little yellow umbrella to top off the outfit and Alex rolls her eyes because it means that Kara and Lucy must have been watching Singing in the Rain recently. Personally, she’s not a huge fan of musicals, but she thinks it’s adorable to watch Zoe try to dance like one of her mothers and sing like the other.

The pair of them head off towards Henshaw’s around lunch time and Alex watches with an amused grin as Zoe dances down the street, stopping to jump in any puddle they pass, making up her own words to the title song of the musical she’s clearly emulating.

Megan spots them instantly as they approach and she waves, moving to the hostess stand as they make their way closer.

“Zoe!” she greets enthusiastically. “Did you bring your Aunt Alex to lunch?”

“Yes, Miss Megan,” Zoe replies with a gap-tooth grin.

Megan seems to melt a little at this. “I love your umbrella.” She glances down at her list of tables. “It looks like Kara’s section is full. But I have one table at Ana’s which is right beside her. Want to do that?”

“That’s fine,” Alex replies, ignoring the way her stomach swoops at the thought of sitting in Ana’s section for lunch.

Megan smiles and grabs an adult menu, a kid’s menu and some crayons and takes them to a table on the rear patio. It’s a beautiful sunny day and Alex feels good out in the sunlight.

“Hey.” Ana swings by as soon as they’re seated, her hands full of drinks for another table, and she grins, full-on dimples, making Alex absolutely (not) (okay, yes) swoon like a teenager. “I’ll be right with you. Hi, Zoe.” Alex notes the change even in Ana’s voice when she speaks to Zoe. The kid has everyone in town, old and new, totally wrapped around her tiny fingers.

“Hi, Miss Ana!” Zoe says, waving at her before Ana heads to the other table. She holds out her tiny hand to Alex. “Glasses?”

Alex pulls her aviators from her face and hands them over, smirking when Zoe pulls them on. She pulls her cell from her back pocket and snaps a few shots, sending them to Kara.

Suddenly arms scoop Zoe up from behind, making her squeal happily as Kara presses kisses to her face, causing the glasses to be knocked askew and fall to the table. “Mommy, Mommy, it doesn’t have to be like this. I give up!”

Alex and Kara both laugh at this, and Kara swoops to press a kiss to Alex’s cheek as well. “Hi, you two.” She seems to get a good look at Zoe and one brow raises. “I love your outfit, sweetheart.” Her eyes rise to Alex’s. “All she needs is a cape.”

“She clearly gets her sense of style from Lucy,” Alex quips as she slides the glasses up into her hair, spotting Zoe’s dark-haired mother within earshot and making her way over as well.

Lucy’s eyes narrow playfully. “Funny, Danvers. I was gonna say she got it from you.”

“We all know you look far better in a tutu than I do,” Alex replies, making everyone laugh at the memory, and for a moment, things are so easy between them all. It’s like it used to be before things got so complicated.

“That is true,” Lucy replies with a grin. She reaches for Zoe, pulling her up to settle on her hip. “Hi, sweetheart.”

“Hi, Momma,” Zoe replies, snuggling into her arms. Alex feels that pull in her chest again and she’s so envious it hurts. Because as much as she knows Kara and Zoe, and even Lucy love her, she’s never been anyone’s first choice. She wonders if she’ll ever feel worthy of it.

“Oh, sorry, did I get my tables mixed up?” a voice suddenly cuts in. Three sets of eyes find Ana standing across the table from them looking sort of sheepish. “I thought you guys were mine.”

The way she says it makes Alex’s stomach swoop, but she can’t linger on the feeling because Lucy is smirking at them both. Alex can’t help but take a moment to appreciate how beautiful Ana looks, and she strikes such a different picture than the day Alex had met her.

She’s wearing a light blue Henshaw’s t-shirt that makes the summer tan she’s picked up look even more stunning. Her shaggy hair is pulled up in a ponytail that some strands have escaped, only to be looped behind her ears. Her nose and cheeks are pink from the day’s sun and her eyes are sparkling.

She’s stunning.

“Oh, she’s definitely yours, Ana,” Lucy says, her voice dripping with innuendo. She focuses on straightening one of Zoe’s pigtails in favor of acknowledging the death-glare Alex suddenly has aimed at her head. “Kara and I were just saying hi to our Mini-Danvers.”

“That’s me,” Zoe says without missing a beat, raising a hand and grinning up at all of them like she knows exactly what she’s doing.

“You sure are, Bug,” Lucy says, settling the girl back in her seat. “Milk for this one,” she says to Ana, pressing her finger to the top of Zoe’s head. Her eyes narrow playfully at Alex. “Maybe milk for that one too.”

“Does a body good, Lane,” Alex shoots back, a smirk of her own. “I bet I could still run circles around you.”

“Ha! I’d love to see you try.”

“Meet me on the beach in the morning and we’ll see who wins.”

“Okay you two.” Kara holds her hands up between them, because she’s heard this particular banter too many times. She rolls her eyes at the playful competitiveness between the two most important women in her life. But she’s absolutely beaming that they’re bantering and not caught up in awkward tension, like usual. “Not in front of the child. And especially not since we all know I would beat you both.”

“You need to put your money where your mouth is, Little Danvers,” Lucy challenges playfully, her eyes flirty and mirthful, knowing how much Kara hates that nickname.

“Any day, baby,” Kara teases back, eyes narrowing.

“Just water for me, please,” Alex says to Ana, who looks totally lost in the ridiculous Danvers’ family shenanigans.

Ana seems to snap out of it, and offers Alex a grateful smile, and it makes Alex’s heart stop dead. She honestly had no idea she even had a thing for dimples.

“Got it. Be right back with those.”

Kara glances over her shoulder. “Gotta close out a table. I’ll be back to check on you two.”

Lucy glances at her watch and nods, pressing a kiss to the top of Zoe’s head. “Yeah, I have to get back to work, too. Bye, Bug.” Before she walks away, she turns back to Alex again and smiles, softly and warmly, and in a way that she hasn’t in too long. “Thanks for bringing her by.”

Zoe waves distractedly at both her mothers for a moment as her attention is drawn to the coloring in front of her. She nudges a green crayon in Alex’s direction and gazes up at her with those wide blue eyes expectantly. “Will you help me color the trees, Aunt Alex?”

“Sure, sweetie,” Alex replies, her heart melting again. She’s certain that her face has broken out into the same adoring smile that literally everyone adopts when they’re close to the littlest Danvers. “Do you know what you want for lunch?” she asks as she bends over the paper placemat to help Zoe color the trees.

“A grilled cheese?” Zoe asks, gazing up at her with the same wide-eyed, hopeful expression she’s seen on her little sister’s face too many times to count. With blue eyes to match her mother’s, it’s just as impossible to say no to her.

“Is that official, or do you need a little more time to decide?” Ana asks as she arrives with drinks, one brow raised with obvious amusement. She sets a plastic cup of milk down and a glass of water on the table.

“It’s official,” Zoe tells her with a cheeky grin.

Ana glances at Alex for confirmation, and she nods, signaling it’s okay. Ana grins down at the little girl. “Your hair looks lovely today, Miss Zoe.”

“Thanks!” Zoe replies with a smile. “Aunt Alex did it herself.”

“Very nice work, Aunt Alex,” Ana says playfully, dark eyes cutting to meet hers.

“Thanks.” Alex nods, unable to tear her gaze from this beautiful stranger.

Ana snaps out of it first, when someone yells for her, and she points at the menu on the table, forgotten in favor of crayons, which seems to make Ana smile wider. “What can I get you?”

“Oh,” Alex says, her cheeks warming. “I’ll do a cheeseburger. Medium rare with everything.”

“You got it,” Ana says with a nod. “I’ll be back, ladies. Let me know if you need more crayons.”

Alex glances up with playfully narrowed eyes and her heart skips when Ana shoots a playful smile over her shoulder. Her face flushes and her heart stutters and, man, she has it bad already. She slips her glasses back on in an attempt to keep her hands busy and resumes coloring until lunch arrives.

Alex subtly watches Ana throughout lunch. She still remembers that day, weeks ago, when Ana had stepped up to the counter to buy that cup of coffee, her eyes wide and terrified, her skin sort of washed out and sallow looking, hair badly dyed and hands shaking. Today she looks radiant. Her slightly longer hair pulled into a ponytail, and her skin darker with a beautiful summer tan. Alex catches her eyes sparkling every now and again – usually whenever she talks to Zoe.

It’s staggering to see the difference in her.

It’s nearly two hours later that she thinks it might be time to head back to the store. She knows James won’t mind her extended lunch, and he enjoys tinkering around the store, fixing broken shelves and replacing bad bulbs for her.

The sections around them had been steadily clearing out since she and Zoe sat down, and she figures part of it has to do with the slowly darkening sky above them, but she still can’t find it within her to head back yet.

Kara had been cut thirty minutes prior, and had immediately changed clothes and joined them with a drink, and the two of them are watching as Ana is teaching Zoe some sort of magic trick that Alex herself doesn’t understand, but it makes Zoe squeal and giggle every time she does it.

She can literally feel Kara melting next to her, and she’s practically tearing up by the time Lucy is finished and deems that it’s time to head home.

Ana crouches down and presses the tiny plastic ball into Zoe’s hand and winks at her conspiratorially. “So you can practice the trick like I showed you,” she says to her, making Zoe cheer and throw her arms around Ana.

Alex watches the exchange and notices the way Ana immediately tenses the moment she’s touched, but she seems to melt into the hug a moment later. The second Zoe releases her, Alex watches as Ana’s right hand immediately finds her left, twisting at her ring finger nervously.

Alex has seen her do it before, and like every other time, her heart sinks as she takes in the action, because she’s seen it so many times before and it reminds her of the countless women she’d seen in the ER rotations that came in with broken noses or cheek bones or eye sockets, bloody and terrified, insisting that they’d “tripped” or “fallen” or something equally as transparent.

But the truth would come out on occasion, and she would sit and listen to them tell their stories, with their haunted eyes and Alex always noticed that they all seemed to have one thing in common; they’d all subconsciously touched or twisted their wedding rings, like those rings were the shackles that bound them to their partners.

The absent twisting is just the latest in a string of mannerisms that have led Alex to the conclusion that Ana is one of the few lucky, brave ones that actually got away from someone. Someone that hurt her. Repeatedly. The lack of eye contact, the tension when she’s touched, the constant feeling that Alex gets like Ana is always looking over her shoulder. And now the twisting of the invisible ring.

It all adds up and it makes her heart clench and her stomach turn. Because Ana is wonderful. She’s sweet and kind and so beautiful that it makes Alex sick to think someone had hurt her so badly that she isn’t even sure how to be herself anymore. It makes her want to wrap the other woman in her arms and never let anything bad happen to her again.

“I guess you need your check?” Ana asks, glancing down at Alex. Her eyes are still nervous, even from hugging a child, and it makes Alex’s heart hurt, and she silently curses whoever is responsible for hurting her so badly.

Alex swallows a rush of nerves and shakes her head. “Actually, I wouldn’t mind a beer?” She ignores the smirk that Lucy is sending her way and instead focuses on the way Ana’s dimples flash as she smiles softly and turns to get her drink.

“Well then, I guess we should get out of your hair,” Lucy says, winking at her when Alex glares in her direction.

Kara giggles and picks Zoe up to sling her on her hip. “Ready to go, Bug?”

The girl nods sleepily and Alex rises to her feet to tickle her belly and kiss her cheeks loudly, earning a sort of sleepy whine instead of the usual giggles. She exchanges a grin with Kara over the little grump. “See you tomorrow, Zo.”

“Bye, Aunt Alex,” Zoe replies softly, but then her face turns out a soul-crushing smile.

They exchange goodbyes and all wave goodbye to Ana as she returns with her beer. Ana is grinning that special grin that she seems to only reserve for Zoe as she waves goodbye to the little girl, who is waving back sleepily over her mother’s shoulder.

“She’s so cute,” Ana says as she sets the drink down.

“Careful, Ana,” Alex raises a playful eyebrow. “She’s a married woman, and I know first-hand how jealous Lucy gets.”

“Who said I was talking about Kara?” Ana fires back with a smirk. “She’s sweet, but blondes aren’t really my type.”

Alex is impressed with the other woman’s quick wit, and she’s glad she can take a joke. “So, what exactly is your type then?”

“Maybe if I stick around long enough you’ll find out,” Ana shoots back playfully.

It’s odd because Alex can see the exact moment that Ana goes from playful, and almost flirty to reserved and shy, like she’s suddenly remembering she shouldn’t be having any fun.

Because the easy-going posture turns rigid, the flirty smile melts into tight lines of worry around her mouth and eyes, and it’s staggering to Alex to see the exact moment that Ana’s entire demeanor shifts.

“I’m not keeping you from being cut, am I?” Alex suddenly asks, realizing ordering a drink might have been kind of rude. “Sorry, I didn’t think.

Ana shakes her head. “No. I’m here all day. Until we close.” She props herself up against the edge of the next table, crossing one ankle over the other.

“Oh, good.” Alex sags a little in relief. She sips her beer, mood brightening when she realizes that Ana doesn’t seem to be in a big rush to be anywhere else. “Have you managed to find anything fun to do with your time since you moved here?”

Ana shrugs one shoulder up, her eyes suddenly focused on the pen in her hand, twisting it anxiously between her fingers. “Mostly I just work. Then work around the cottage to fix it up.”

“I said _fun_ ,” Alex teases. She’s quiet for a beat, turning the bottle in her hands slowly, not exactly sure she should take the step she’s about to. But she does it anyways, because she’s Alex Danvers. Even though she swore to herself that she wouldn’t. “Ever been surfing?”

Ana shakes her head, but her eyes absolutely light up. “Can’t say that I have.”

“I like to go early on Sundays and Mondays. If you ever want to try it, let me know. I have an extra longboard that I taught Kara and Lucy on.”

Alex holds her breath because Ana appears to be debating something with herself, her head dropped, but then her head raises and tilts to the side and a shy sort of smile works its way onto her lips.

Alex feels her heart trip and stutter in her chest again.

“Tomorrow is Sunday,” Ana points out quietly.

Alex realizes that she might actually be getting the answer she’s hoping for and she nods. “It is.”

“So, you’re going tomorrow morning?”

“I’ll be on the beach at 6. There’s an access ramp right across from the store if you want to join me. Tomorrow or any other time.”

“You really don’t mind?”

“Not at all.”

“Okay. I'll see you tomorrow.”

And just like that, Alex has a date.

 

 

Alex takes the long way home from Henshaw’s later that day.

It passes Kara and Lucy’s bungalow-style house, and after her conversation with Ana, she feels like she could use one more with her sister.

She finds Kara in the front yard.

It’s a modest home with three bedrooms and a spacious yard for Zoe, complete with a white picket fence around the perimeter of the yard.

The garden hose is stretched out across the lawn from where it normally wraps up under the porch, but it sits forgotten and hissing, spewing tiny streams of water from sitting unused for so long.

Kara is crouched down in front of a row of flowers that line the brick paver walkway, plucking a few small weeds from the ground around them. Then she stands to survey her work and smiles as she bends down for the hose. That’s when she spots Alex, and the hose is forgotten once more.

“Hi,” Kara greets happily. “Not that I’m not happy to see you again so soon, but what are you doing here?”

“Hey,” Alex greets, suddenly struck by a bout of nerves. She begins twisting her hands unconsciously as she approaches the gate. She swings it open with so much excess nervous energy that it bangs into the fence behind it and nearly swings closed again.

Kara’s eyebrows shoot up. “You okay?”

“Can we talk?” Alex asks.

Kara nods slowly, still watching her carefully. “Will you turn off the hose? I’ll grab us something to drink.”

Alex nods, and a few minutes later they’re seated on the large front porch in two white rocking chairs that Alex remembers painting a few weeks after she moved back.

“Alex, are you okay?” Kara asks as she hands over a glass of lemonade.

“I sort of invited Ana to come surfing with me in the morning,” Alex says. “And she said yes.”

Kara’s eyes get wide and she grins. “You did? Alex, that’s so great. I knew the two of you-“ She stops short and suddenly deflates. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Alex agrees. “I should cancel though, right?”

“No,” Kara responds immediately. “You deserve to be happy, Alex. I know that’s what your parents would have wanted above everything else.”

Alex nods. “I get that, but I can be happy another day. Literally any other day.”

“Do you remember when you took me to the aquarium years ago?” Kara asks softly, and Alex nods because she would never not remember that day. “We had the best time. We spent hours watching the dolphins and the sharks and all the beautiful fish. You bought me that stuffed octopus from the gift shop, even though it cost every dime Eliza had given you for both of us. Then you somehow talked them into letting me feed one of the dolphins. That was something I had always dreamed of doing.”

“I remember,” Alex tells her, a fond smile on her face.

“That was my parents’ anniversary,” Kara reminds her sadly, and Alex nods because she knows. She would never forget that date either. “You knew, and you told me you wanted to take me out to do something that would make me smile, because my parents would have wanted nothing less than my happiness. And you were right. We made happy memories that day, and it didn’t do anything to make me forget my parents. It just gave me something happy to look back on, too.”

Alex sucks in a breath, blinking back tears.

“Going out with Ana tomorrow won’t make you forget, and it won’t be imposing on your memory of them. If anything, it’s something that you know would make them so incredibly happy for you.”

“I just feel so guilty,” Alex sighs. “And I would hate to cancel on her now.”

“Don’t feel guilty,” Kara tells her softly. “And don’t cancel. Spend the morning with Ana, teaching her something that your dad taught you that you two did together that made you both happy. Then spend the afternoon with your family if you want us.”

“Of course I’ll want you,” Alex says, and part of her does feel better. Like she isn’t imposing on her memory of her parents.

“You deserve to be happy, Alex,” Kara tells her again. “And I really think Ana is going to play a big part in your happiness.”

Alex feels her cheeks flush and she can’t help the smile that breaks out on her face just at the thought of her. “She’s really great.”

“She _is_ really great,” Kara agrees.

They both glance up when the screen door opens and Lucy steps out. “Kara?” She stops short when she realizes the sisters are both sitting on the porch.

“Hi,” Kara greets warmly.

“Oh.” Lucy winks at her and smiles at Alex. “Hey, Alex.” She wrings her hands and looks a little lost in the moment. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were here. I’ll leave you to it.”

“No, stay!” Kara exclaims immediately, shooting a begging look at Alex, who sighs and nods along.

“Yeah,” Alex says. It hurts so much to be around Lucy when things are still so strained. She misses Lucy’s friendship terribly. And these days surrounding the anniversary of her parents’ deaths are always the hardest, and the time when she finds she misses Lucy the most. “Stay.”

“Alex has a date!” Kara spills the moment she sees Lucy has decided to stay, practically bouncing in her seat. “A surf date in the morning with Ana!”

Alex smiles wryly at Lucy. “Guess what?”

Lucy grins, and it’s so warm. Warmer than Alex has seen in years. “You have a surf date in the morning with your dream girl?”

“She is super dreamy,” Kara muses.

“Someone has a little crush,” Lucy tells Alex, a fond sort of half smile on her face. She runs a hand over Kara’s hair affectionately and presses a kiss to the crown of her head as she passes.

“No,” Kara replies, shaking her head. “I just sort of want to hug her until she’s not sad anymore.”

“Something tells me that would take a lot of hugging,” Lucy muses as she takes a seat on the steps, leaning back against the railing post to address Alex. “Just make sure you wear the black bikini in the morning. The sporty one. It somehow miraculously makes both your legs and your torso look insanely long.”

“Aw, don’t be jealous, Luce,” Kara coos teasingly.

“I would _kill_ for 3 more inches,” Lucy grumbles.

“That’s what he said,” Kara jokes.

Alex rolls her eyes and stands. “I should get home.” She ignores the hurt expression that blooms over Lucy’s features, knowing she probably thinks Alex is leaving because she’s joined them.

It makes her heart ache a little, because Lucy is always a little warmer with her when her parents’ anniversary rolls around. She wants to bask in it a little longer, but she’s exhausted.

“Long day, and I have to be up early to teach the most beautiful girl I’ve _ever_ met how to surf. All while not making a total fool of myself.”

Lucy smacks her playfully on the ass as Alex steps over her body to take the steps down. “Don’t be nervous. Bumbling Alex Danvers is cute, but confident Alex Danvers is really hot.” Lucy grins when she’s met with matching eye rolls from the sisters. “We’ll see you tomorrow?”

Alex feels a stab of pain in her chest. “Around one?”

Kara stands and hugs Alex over Lucy’s outstretched legs. “See you tomorrow. Love you.”

“Love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of the first chapters I wrote for this story, and it's one of my favorites. I hope you liked it. Thanks to everyone who has commented or left kudos. Every one of them means so much.  
> Up next? Alex teaches Maggie how to surf.


	12. Alex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surf date as promised. Enjoy!

Alex wakes early the next morning.

Like, an hour before the sun even _rises_ early. She tells herself it’s because it’s the anniversary of her parents’ deaths, and it’s the day she’s been dreading all week because she knows how painful it’s going to be to go see them.

But deep down there’s a tug of excitement because she also knows she’s going to see Ana. In a bathing suit. On a surf board. And she’s going to share a part of herself with Ana that she hasn’t shared with anyone other than Kara, Lucy, and her parents when they’d been alive.

Maybe she’ll even work up the guts to ask her out.

Another part of her sort of hates herself, and wonders again if she should cancel, because she wonders again if it makes her a bad person for scheduling something she’s actually looking forward to on a day that means so much to her, and is so painful to her. But she doesn’t have Ana’s number _to_ cancel, and she can’t just not show up and leave the poor girl there on the beach.

And then there’s third part of her, which sounds suspiciously like Kara, that tells her that her parents would want her to be happy, and they would encourage Alex to put herself out there and try to find love.

She realizes that she certainly won’t be able to go back to sleep, so she gets up and heads for the kitchen to brew some coffee. As the pot brews she stares out her window as the very beginnings of the sun’s rays start to peek over the horizon. The tattered wind sock on the porch is skipping over the breeze, its direction and intensity letting Alex know that the beach will have some very fine waves that day.

She takes her time sipping her coffee and dressing in her favorite bikini and cut offs over it, pulling her hair off her face. She slides on her flip flops and heads to the garage to get her boards tucked into the back of the jeep. She throws in a few spare wetsuit tops just in case and hops into the jeep.

She pulls into the beach access across from the store and drives slowly, shifting into four-wheel drive as she goes, and waves at a few familiar faces as she passes them along the path. She comes to a stop at the end of the ramp and looks both ways, trying to decide where she wants to park, and she’s surprised to see Ana already on the beach, sitting on a towel a little ways to the south.

She turns in her direction and pulls up behind her, parking the jeep and taking a deep breath of ocean air as she takes in the beginnings of what will be a breathtaking sunrise.

“Morning,” Ana greets, looking a little sleepy, but her eyes are shining with barely concealed excitement.

“Morning,” Alex replies with a smile. “I thought I was early?”

Ana nods and sips her coffee. “I was excited. Couldn’t get back to sleep, so I grabbed coffee and thought I’d watch the sunrise.”

“It certainly looks promising,” she says, letting her eyes linger on the horizon for a few moments. Alex moves around the jeep and pulls her shorter board out from the back and lays it in the sand next to Ana, suddenly very aware of dark eyes watching her closely. She grabs the longboard and lays it down next to hers, closer to Ana.

Alex moves back to the jeep to strip off her tank top and shorts, pulling on a short-sleeved wetsuit top, and as she turns back, she definitely catches Ana watching her.

Ana clears her throat as a blush scatters over her cheeks. “Can I help?”

Alex smiles at her, shaking her head. “I just need to put some wax on these. I brought a few spare wetsuit tops if you need one?”

“Will I need one?” Ana asks uncertainly.

Alex shrugs. “The water is warm enough not to, but it’ll help keep you from getting board rash. And from flashing random strangers if you wipe out,” she adds with a smirk.

“Speaking from personal experience?” Ana asks with a laugh.

“Unfortunately,” Alex says with a casual shrug. She goes about scraping old wax off both boards and applying a layer of new to her board, but she’s distracted by the sight of Ana stripping off her shirt, revealing a modest bikini (and abs that literally make her swoon), before she pulls on a wetsuit top.

Once she has the fin removed from the long board she lays it flat in the sand and teaches Ana how to paddle and pop up on the board. The sun is up over the water by the time they’re done, and Alex has greeted a few more familiar faces as they make their way down the beach to walk or catch their own waves.

Once Ana feels confident enough, they wax the longboard and move to the water and Alex wades in next to her without a board for the time being. She helps Ana paddle out, hopping over or dipping under the waves as best she can, and then helps her settle and sit on the board once they’re out past the breaking waves.

Alex treads water next to her trying to keep her eyes from raking over Ana’s form in _her_ wetsuit top, sitting on _her_ surfboard. But it’s difficult, because Ana is a vision. Her hair is a little longer wet and slightly wavy. Drops of water slide over her thighs, and the curve of her knee, and drip from her chin in the most appealing way. When Ana readjusts herself on the board Alex can see her triceps flash even through the wetsuit.

If she were standing she’d probably be weak in the knees.

“So how long have you been surfing?”

Alex blushes when she catches the grin on Ana’s face, letting her know she’s been caught staring.

“Years,” Alex says, keeping her eyes on the horizon for a decent wave. “My dad taught me when I was younger, and then he and I taught Kara after she came to live with us.”

“You two seem so close.”

“We are now,” Alex confirms with a soft smile. “She’s the best.”

“Kara is really great,” Ana agrees easily.

Alex smiles softly, warmly. It’s the smile that’s pretty much reserved just for her. And Zoe. “Believe it or not, we actually didn’t always get along so well.”

“Really?”

“Hmm,” Alex hums. Her eyes are on the horizon, searching for a good wave. “I was sort of the center of my parents’ universe before she came. Then I had to share that as a 14 year old. And I had to share everything else with her too. It wasn’t easy.”

“I never would have guessed,” Ana says.

Alex taps the back of the board suddenly. “Okay, get ready.” She begins to help line the board up and Ana instantly drops to her stomach to ready herself to paddle.

“Okay, paddle,” Alex instructs, giving the board a hard shove into the path of the wave. She bobs over just as the wave is readying to break and Ana just catches it in time to propel her towards the beach. Alex raises her hands to cheer when Ana kneels unsteadily for a few seconds before she teeters and falls back into the ocean.

Ana surfaces with the most radiant smile Alex has ever seen. It’s then that she finally sees who Ana could really be if she didn’t have so much baggage and so much fear. And she wants that more than anything for her. She wants to make Ana smile like that more. To take some of the weight from her former life and shoulder it to make things lighter for her.

Alex lets the momentum of another wave carry her closer to the shore with the intent of helping Ana back through the waves.

Ana meets her halfway, board tucked under one arm. “That was amazing! And I didn’t even stand up!” she says as she throws her other arm around Alex the moment she’s close enough.

Alex’s arms instinctively wind around her middle and she pulls her close. A breaking wave around their knees almost throws them off balance and Alex helps steady Ana, who stumbles unsteadily against her.

Alex keeps her arms wrapped around her, the closeness making her dizzy as Ana’s bare legs glide against hers. She pulls back enough to keep a loose hold on her, hands falling to the small of Ana’s back instinctively.

“You good?” she asks, desperately trying not to get lost in the morning sun reflecting off Ana’s eyes, making her even more devastatingly attractive.

Suddenly Ana’s smile turns shy, and it makes Alex’s heart stutter in her chest.

“I’m good. Thanks, Alex.”

Alex winks. “Good. Let’s go again.”

 

She watches as Ana catches a few waves, returning to her with more enthusiasm each time she stands on the board. Alex finally feels confident leaving her long enough to retrieve her own board and soon they’re sitting up next to one another, bobbing over the slow rolling waves out past the breakers.

They take turns catching waves, cheering each other on, and Alex has to focus, because the fire in Ana’s eyes is something magnificent. She’s never seen her so energized and happy.

“Thanks for this, Alex,” Ana says softly after they’ve both caught several waves, and neither seem ready to leave just yet.

Alex knows she’s just delaying the inevitable heartache of visiting her parents.

“Any time,” Alex replies. She sneaks a glance at her watch and knows she really only has time for one or two more waves.

“One more?” Ana asks with a smirk.

God, it’s the hottest thing Alex has ever seen.

Alex nods. “One more.”

They both wait until the right moment, and Ana catches the first wave in, with Alex right behind her. They tuck their boards under their arms and head back to the jeep, where Alex secures them both in the back.

They dry off and change, Alex tossing her bags in the back with the boards. “Can I give you a lift?”

“Sure,” Ana replies without hesitation.

To Alex it feels like progress. Like maybe the two of them are on their way to being friends. She knows she’s insanely attracted to Ana, but would never think of making a move unless Ana did first.

They drive back to Ana’s in comfortable silence, just the radio quietly playing in the background as the warm air whips around them, and she feels like she’s pulling into Ana’s driveway far too soon.

Ana steps from the vehicle, and rounds the front to stop at Alex door, where she reaches through the open window to lay her hand on Alex’s arm, resting in the open window sill.

The simplest touch makes Alex’s stomach swoop pleasantly, and she does her best to smile even though it feels like her lips are sticking to her teeth.

“Thanks again for everything today,” she says softly. “It was a really great morning.”

“It was,” Alex agrees, keeping her voice just as low, appreciating how intimate it feels. “You’re welcome to join me any time.”

Ana’s eyes are absolutely blazing in the morning sun, and she’s never looked more beautiful. Alex isn’t quite ready to let her go. Her mind races to come up with something. Anything to make this moment last just a little longer.

“I forgot to ask how your floors turned out.”

Ana’s face slips into a soft sort of smile and she squeezes Alex’s forearm gently. “Want to come in and see?”

The weight of what Ana is offering is clear to Alex. She’s inviting her into her personal space. Ana trusts her enough to let her into her home, and to Alex, it means the world.

Having been to James’ cottage several times, Alex is familiar with the layout, but she steps inside not sure what to expect. Despite the fact that all the cottages on the street are a little older and a little run down, Ana’s is spotless inside. It’s clear she’s spent hours on her space.

Alex grins as soon as she sees the kitchen floor, painted in the lemon twist Ana had ordered, and she has to admit that it adds a certain charm to the place.

“What do you think?” Ana asks softly, standing behind her.

Alex notices the way she stands, like she’s nervously waiting for Alex’s approval, and it makes Alex frown when she notices the absent twisting of the non-existent ring.

“I’ll admit I was a little skeptical of the yellow, but it looks really great,” Alex tells her honestly.

Ana’s face breaks out into a smile that nearly stops Alex’s heart. It’s all teeth and dimples and crinkles at the corners of her eyes.

God, she has it bad.

Alex stands upright and takes a step towards her, when suddenly her foot goes right through one of the floorboards, and she can suddenly see the sand beneath the house. She ends up on her ass next to the hole, her leg buried up to her thigh, and the two of them exchange wide-eyed looks.

Then they both break out into hysterical laughter. The kind that makes tears leak from your eyes and makes your stomach hurt because you can’t seem to stop.

They both end up on the ground next to the hole, leaned against each other as their giggles taper off. They’re both swiping at the tears that have leaked from their eyes as they both catch their breath, and there’s a sudden moment of clarity between them.

Alex wants to lean in so badly, but she promised herself she wouldn’t make the first move (apparently surf dates notwithstanding). But she does lift one hand slowly, being so, so careful that Ana sees her hand before she touches her. She gently presses her palm to Ana’s cheek, her breath hitching when Ana leans into the touch, and she carefully swipes her thumb under her eye, where one rogue tear has escaped Ana’s fingers.

Ana’s eyes track from her lips to her eyes to her lips again, and Alex swallows hard, wondering if it’s really going to happen. The sun is streaming in from the windows, making Ana’s eyes glow almost caramel in color, and she looks so vibrant and beautiful in that moment that Alex tells herself _fuck it_ , and leans in.

Then her phone rings.

The spell is broken when Alex notices it’s the alarm she set to remind herself she needs to be at home getting ready for her visit with Kara to the cemetery to visit her parents. The thought sobers her instantly, and she pulls herself from the hole in the floor.

“I’m sorry; I really have to get going,” Alex says. “I can come by and fix this later if you want?”

“No, that’s okay,” Ana replies. “I can take care of it.”

“You’re sure?” Alex wonders as she heads for the door.

“I’m sure. Thanks, Alex,” she says. Then Ana’s hands are on her. Fisting in her shirt at her waist to turn her around to make sure she’s alright. “Is your leg okay?”

Alex twists this way and that way, inspecting her leg for any damage, and she smirks a little when she catches Ana checking her out as she does. “I think I’m good.”

Then, before either of them seems to realize what’s happening, Ana leans forward and presses a kiss to Alex’s cheek.

Alex can’t help the bashful grin that spreads across her features, and she notices a hint of color in Ana’s cheeks as well.

“I’ll see you later,” Alex says, ducking out before things can get weird.

“Yeah,” Ana replies. “Thanks again.”

The moment Alex is out the door, her face breaks out into a massive smile, and it stays that way until she arrives home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next, Alex is emotional after visiting her parents, things with Lucy come to a head, and Alex and Maggie grow closer. Not gonna lie, the next one is a big one. Hope you enjoyed this one!


	13. Alex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Lucy get some closure. Lucy gets hurt. Alex and Maggie grow closer.  
> And Zoe is adorable, as always.

Later that day, Alex is seated outside, sipping her third beer of the afternoon and trying desperately not to feel every inch of the gaping hole in her chest that was left when her parents died. The day had started out so great that it almost feels like an entirely different day to her.

James is tending to things inside and the rest of her family is at home. Kara had nearly refused, wanting to stick close, but Alex had sent them home a few hours ago, insisting Zoe needed a nap, and she was desperate for some time to herself so she could start to pull the split-apart pieces of herself back together.

The weight of the day is still pressing into her in ways that make the rest of her feel like they might pop out; kind of like a stress ball being squeezed too tightly. She chews her lip, eyes closing as she pictures her parents. Her mother’s smile and warm eyes. Her father’s laughter and bad dad-jokes. Her face crumples again and she sucks in a shuddery breath, taking another sip of her warm beer.

It’s nearly silent in the twilight around her. Just a light breeze ruffling her hair every now and again and some seagulls squawking in the distance. Suddenly her ears perk up as she hears quiet footsteps on the dirt road behind her.

She swallows hard past the lump in her throat from holding her tears in, and swipes at her eyes as inconspicuously as possible. But her tears nearly burst from her again when she recognizes the voices of her niece, sister and sister-in-law. Zoe is singing a song she made up about Mr. Bojangles, who is napping on the porch at the front of the store.

Alex turns, her smile watery as she watches the girl make her way closer. Zoe lights up when she sees Alex and skips ahead of her mothers to hug her aunt. “Hi, Aunt Alex.”

“Hi,” she greets, hugging the girl tightly.

“Why are you crying?” Zoe asks innocently, reaching up to swipe at Alex’s eyes. She’s wearing a ridiculous floppy hat that looks adorable on her, and even when Alex is at her worst, Zoe can make her smile.

Alex laughs. “Happy tears, Bug. Happy to see you.”

Zoe hugs her again. “I’m happy to see you too.”

When Zoe releases her in favor of the dog, Alex looks up and finds Lucy and Kara watching her with matching warm, understanding expressions. Kara smiles softly at her and trails along after Zoe, giving Alex and Lucy some space.

It’s sort of an odd move, since Kara hasn’t really left the pair of them to their own devices since Alex moved back two years ago, and it certainly not like Kara at all to leave her when she’s clearly upset. But then she sees Lucy’s face and realizes she seems to want to talk.

“Hey,” Lucy greets softly, taking the seat across from Alex at the picnic table.

Alex swipes at her eyes again. “Hi. What are you guys doing here?”

“Zo wanted to see the dog,” Lucy explains with a shrug, pulling something from her back pocket and sliding it across the table. A flask. “And I wanted to see you.”

“That’s new,” Alex grumbles. She’s just drunk enough that she doesn’t bother to filter what she’s really feeling. She swipes the flask and takes a sip, face souring at the taste of the scotch.

Lucy takes her comment in stride, and reaches for the flask, taking a sip herself. “I didn’t come here to fight with you, Alex. I just wanted to check on you.”

“Well, I’m fine,” Alex says bitterly, knowing that she’s pretty much the farthest thing from fine that there is.

Lucy scoffs at her. “Oh really?”

“Why do you even care?” She’s drunk and angry at the world, and Lucy picked a really bad time to try to mend fences between them, so Alex decides she’s going to take the brunt of her anger and sadness.

“Because you’re my best friend, Alex!”

“You haven’t looked me in the eye in two years, Lucy,” Alex exclaims. “Since I’ve been back. I know what you think about me. I left Kara here to go live my life. I picked myself for _once_ and you hate me for it.”

“Alex,” Lucy breathes, her expression softening. “Is that what you really think?”

“What am I supposed to think?” Alex sneers. “My entire life has been about keeping Kara safe and putting her first. Ever since she came to live with us. And you were my best friend in the world. And now you can’t even look at me.”

“Honey, I still am your best friend,” Lucy says. She sighs and reaches across the table to grasp both of Alex’s hands in hers. “I love you, Alex. And yes, it was tough on Kara, and on me when you left, but we both know why you did.” She pauses, sucking in a shaky breath. “But you saved my daughter’s life the night of the accident, but at the expense of your _parents_. There are no words in the world for me to say to you to explain how that feels. I loved your mother and father like they were mine, and they loved and treated me like I was one of their own. Your family has been my family for ten years. And they’re gone, and you could have saved them. But instead you saved Zoe, and I’m eternally grateful for that. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel? What kind of person does that make me? I haven’t been able to look at you for two years because every time I do I’m so grateful that you saved her, but the guilt _consumes_ me because it means you don’t have your parents around any more. And Kara lost hers. Again.”

It feels like something inside Alex cracks in that moment and all her anguish from the last two years comes pouring out of her. She covers her face with both hands, and suddenly Lucy’s arms wind around her tightly, warmly, and it makes her cry harder.

“I thought you hated me,” Alex sobs.

“Honey, I’m so sorry,” Lucy says, rocking Alex back and forth slowly. “Jesus, Alex, have you been carrying that around for two years?”

This, for some reason, makes Alex laugh, and soon the two of them are laughing hysterically. The relief has clearly made them both giddy. Kara gives them an odd look from where she’s chatting with James, and that makes them laugh even harder.

Zoe looks at her mother and aunt, and giggles at them as she plays with Mr. Bojangles, setting her hat on his head, when a sudden gust of wind carries the hat off towards the dock and the water beyond it.

“Momma!” Zoe calls, pointing towards it. She has clearly figured her mothers out. She knows to go to Kara with a scraped knee or a nightmare, and she goes to Lucy when something needs to get done.

Lucy sighs, rolling her eyes playfully. “Of course. Can’t let the dog go without his stupid hat.” She cradles Alex’s head in both hands and presses a long, exaggerated kiss to her temple. “I love you.”

Alex’s breath catches. She can’t remember the last time she felt like her heart was this full, and she watches Lucy jog off towards the dock to fetch the hat. She sighs out a shaky, watery breath, feeling lighter than she has in two years.

“Hey, Alex.”

Alex spins in her seat to find Ana behind her holding a small bouquet of flowers that she’s sort of absently spinning in her hands. She can only imagine what she must look like, more than a little drunk, and eyes red and puffy from crying.

“Ana. Hi.”

Ana looks beautiful as always. Dressed in a plaid shirt, rolled at the elbows, over a tank top, cut offs and chucks on her feet. She’s casual and summery and so, so beautiful.

“Hi, Miss Ana,” Zoe greets with a wave. She makes her way to Alex’s side, seeming content to lean against her aunt and watch her mother fetch her hat.

“Hi, Zoe.”

Alex turns back around and swipes at her eyes again.

“Are you alright?”

Alex nods, running her index fingers under her eyes, exhaling a deep breath with puffs of her cheeks as she faces the other woman again. “Long day.” She offers Ana a smile that she hopes actually looks more like a smile than the grimace it feels like.

“We visited Gramma and Grandpa at the cemetery,” Zoe pipes up helpfully, her eyes still on her mother.

Alex’s eyes close and her shoulders slump. “Thanks, Zo,” she mumbles to herself.

“Oh, Alex.” Ana’s eyes are on her when she looks up, and there’s a sad sort of understanding there that she hadn’t been expecting. “I’m so sorry.”

Alex swallows. “Thanks.”

Ana thrust the flowers towards her awkwardly, unable to tear her eyes from her shoes, and Alex notes the pink tingeing her cheeks. “For you.”

“Flowers?”

It might literally be the dumbest thing she’s ever said.

Ana blinks up at her and smiles, shrugging one shoulder up. “For the surf lesson this morning.” She drops them back to her side, her face briefly flashing hurt, but covering quickly with a sad sort of smile. “It was a stupid idea. Sorry.”

“No!” Alex counts to three before trying again. “Thank you. They’re beautiful. But not necessary. It was nice having someone to surf with again. And after the day I’ve had…”

“It started out pretty great,” Ana says softly, ducking her head adorably and shuffling a few feet closer.

“It did.” Alex stands and takes a few measured steps towards her, feeling all her hard edges softening suddenly, and she opens her mouth to say more, but suddenly there’s a yelp from the dock and Alex looks up quick enough to see Lucy lose her footing and tumble into the water, hitting her head on one of the nearby boats tied up.

“Lucy!”

Alex is suddenly stone-cold sober as she sprints towards the dock. She races past Kara and James, who seem frozen with shock, and she dives into the water and reaches for Lucy’s unmoving body, pulling her close so she can tread back to the side.

Kara is waiting to pull her wife out of the water as soon as Alex is close enough, and she and James haul her up and over the side. Alex pushes herself out of the water and drops to her knees next to Lucy, suddenly crowded by the other two.

“Back up,” Alex demands immediately, going into doctor mode without a thought. The other two give her some room, Kara kneeling next to Lucy’s hip to grasp at her hand as she look on worriedly.

Alex tilts Lucy’s head back and leans in close to her mouth to listen for breath sounds. She pulls her hands away from the back of Lucy’s head and they’re covered in blood.

“James, go inside and get me some towels or something,” she orders without taking her eyes of Lucy, pressing fingers against her neck to feel for her pulse.

“On it,” he says, turning and sprinting towards the store.

“Alex,” Kara breathes, her voice soft and watery and it nearly breaks something inside Alex.

Alex looks up and gives her a small, reassuring smile. “Kara, she’s fine. She’s breathing and her pulse is strong. I think she was just knocked out when she hit her head.” Alex goes about checking Lucy’s pupils, which look normal and by the time James is running back out, Lucy is sputtering and coughing up the water she swallowed.

Alex glances over her shoulder and sees Ana approaching with Zoe cradled in her arms and the little girl’s head tucked into her neck. Something about the sight of them stops her cold, but then James is pressing towels into her hands and she’s focused again.

“Easy, Luce,” she coaxes softly, pressing both towels against the back of Lucy’s head.

Lucy groans, pain evident on her face. “Next time the dog can get his own stupid hat.”

Kara lets out a relieved chuckle that sounds more like a sob and it nearly breaks Alex’s heart. Kara leans in to press her lips to Lucy’s and Alex rolls her eyes fondly as she tries to keep the towels in place.

“Alright, you two, enough,” she tells them finally. “Kara, I think you should take her to the doctor to get her checked out. I’m worried she might have a concussion, and she may need stitches.”

“Okay.” Kara turns watery eyes her way and she smiles gratefully. “Thank you. I’ll take her now.”

Alex and Kara help Lucy sit up slowly and by this point Ana and Zoe have made their way closer.

“Momma!”

Zoe squirms until Ana releases her and the youngest Danvers makes her way to her mother, who scoops her up gently. James wraps another towel around her shoulders and Lucy pulls the little girl close.

“Easy, Bug,” Kara instructs softly, her voice catching. “Momma hit her head.”

“Are you okay, Momma?” Zoe asks, turning tearful eyes towards her dark-haired mother.

“I’m fine, baby,” Lucy assures her softly, pressing kisses to her cheeks and meeting Kara’s worried gaze over the little girl’s head, assuring her, too. She sways a bit when she tries to stand Zoe up next to her, so Kara steps in to pull the little girl to her feet, and Lucy holds her hands up to them both, signaling she’s ready to stand as well.

“You sure you’re good?” Alex asks. Lucy nods, and she and Kara gently guide her to her feet, steadying her when she wavers a bit. She keeps the towel pressed to Lucy’s head as she and Kara help her to Alex’s jeep, parked in front of the store, and they get her settled in the passenger seat. Once Lucy is secure, Alex grasps Zoe’s hand.

“Stay here with Aunt Alex, Bug, okay?” Kara tells her, kissing her cheeks softly before rounding the jeep to the driver’s side. “We’ll be back soon.”

Lucy blows them a kiss, which Alex makes a big show of catching and pretending to press into Zoe’s belly with a tickle to make her giggle.

They watch the jeep drive off and Alex glances down at herself. She’s soaking wet and dripping all over the ground beneath her. Zoe watches the jeep drive away and then glances up at her with wide, unsure eyes.

“Your momma will be fine, sweetheart,” Alex promises softly. “Cross my heart.”

Zoe just sort of nods and turns back to the jeep driving away. A few drops of water land on her and she glances up at Alex looking more offended than any four-year-old has the right to. “You’re dripping on me, Aunt Alex.”

“Sorry, Bug.”

“I can hang out with her for a minute if you need to change,” Ana says, reading her mind.

“Are you sure?” Alex glances at Zoe, who is still watching the jeep drive off. Ana nods. “Zo, can you stay here with Miss Ana for a minute while I change?”

“Okay,” Zoe replies. She looks up at Ana. “Can we color?”

“Absolutely.” Ana smiles and her dimples are on full display. Alex stares at her for a moment because she’s so beautiful, and she never sees her let her guard down like she seems to around Zoe. The kid is magic.

“Thank you,” Alex says softly, earning a softer smile that still makes her heart thump heavily in her chest.

She runs upstairs and changes clothes quickly, and when she makes it back downstairs she finds the bouquet of flowers on the counter, and Ana and Zoe in Zoe’s usual coloring spot, sitting on the floor behind the register perpendicular to one another, Zoe on her belly, coloring happily, and Ana leaned against the back wall, legs outstretched, coloring a picture next to her legs on the floor.

She actually feels a bit breathless at the sight of it, and her mind begins conjuring images before she can stop it. A little girl that calls her mommy, with auburn hair and Ana’s dimples, a ring wrapped around Ana’s finger on her left hand, walking Mr. Bojangles and the little dimpled girl to the park holding hands. Ana smiling that broad, dimpled smile at her. Kissing her.

“Miss Ana?”

Zoe’s voice shakes her from her absolutely ridiculous thoughts about a woman she’s known for a matter of months. She’s not sure what’s gotten into her.

“Hmm?”

“Why do you walk everywhere?” Zoe asks innocently.

“Oh,” Ana stutters. “I don’t have a car.”

Ana looks up at her through her lashes and Alex isn’t sure she’s ever seen a sight so beautiful.

Then Ana smiles.

Alex feels her knees _actually_ , _literally_ go weak. “Thank you,” she says quietly. “For staying with her. And for the flowers.” She takes a seat on the stool behind the register and watches Zoe interact with the other woman, bringing the flowers to her nose to inhale. She expects Ana to get up off the floor and do the shopping that she obviously came for earlier, but Ana leans over to draw a smiley face on Zoe’s picture and watches her with a smile to see how she’ll react. Zoe gasps and reaches over to draw her own on Ana’s paper.

They grin at one another and Ana flips her page over to draw a tic-tac-toe board on the other side.

“Nice save earlier,” Ana comments casually. Her eyes cut up to Alex’s for a moment before focusing on her paper again.

Alex feels her stomach drop at the image her mind’s eye conjures of Lucy’s head cracking against the side of that boat. “I just hope she’s okay. I saw her fall in and the adrenaline and training just kicked in.”

“Kara mentioned you were a doctor,” Ana says softly.

“I was,” Alex replies. “A trauma surgeon actually.”

“Wow,” Ana gasps, her hands finally stilling to look up at her. “That’s impressive.”

Alex blushes under her gaze and shakes her head. “It was just a lot of school.” She suddenly thinks of something. “Hey, I was cleaning out the garage a few days ago, and I came across a few bikes that Kara and I used to ride. No one has touched them in a few years so they might be a bit rusty, but you’re more than welcome to take one. You’d be saving them from the trash.”

“Oh.” Ana’s eyes cut away from hers and she shakes her head. “Thank you. Really. But walking is no trouble at all.”

Alex isn’t deterred. “Are you sure? You’d be doing me a favor. Plus, one of them has a really cute little pink basket on the front.”

Ana smirks at that, a dimple peeking out. “Must have been yours.”

“Oh absolutely,” Alex agrees, playing along. “I do love pink.” She tries one more time. “Are you sure you won’t take the other one? It just needs a new tube in the front tire and maybe some WD40 on the chain. Otherwise it’s as good as new.”

Ana hesitates and Alex finds herself holding her breath until her lashes flutter and she smiles sort of softly. “Are you sure they’d be going to the trash otherwise?”

“Yep.”

There’s another moment of hesitation. “That would be great. Thanks, Alex.”

Alex’s lips twist to the side in an effort to keep her grin from blowing wide open, and she nods once, pleased with Ana’s response. She leaves the two of them to their own devices as she moves around the store, stocking shelves and cleaning up, keenly aware that Ana doesn’t seem to be in a rush to go anywhere.

Kara swings by after about an hour with a quick update on Lucy (concussion) and to pick Zoe up, and they’re both eager to get home to Lucy, so she leaves in a bustle, barely hugging Alex, and then Ana before she’s back out the door again, leaving Alex and Ana alone.

“I guess I should get going,” Ana says as she gathers the crayons off the floor.

Alex feels a stab of disappointment, but figures she’s taken up enough of her day, so she nods, helping her clean up the coloring supplies.

Ana lingers for a moment by the door, her lip pinched between her teeth like she’s contemplating something. She suddenly turns and pulls Alex into a hug.

“Thank you for everything today, Alex,” she says softly, her voice wavering slightly.

Alex sinks into the hug and closes her eyes, because this feels so good, and so right, and Ana smells so good.

“You’re welcome,” Alex whispers. “Any time.”

“And I’m really sorry about your parents.” Ana pulls back from the hug, but remains close enough to keep hold of Alex’s hand.

“Thank you,” Alex tells her with a sad smile. She feels her eyes getting glassy again because she’s suddenly so overwhelmed with emotion. Sadness and grief over her parents, and relief over finally airing things out with Lucy, and finally affection for Ana, who seems to finally be letting her in.

“Don’t cry,” Ana says softly, reaching out to swipe her thumb carefully under Alex’s eye. “I can’t stand to see a beautiful girl cry.”

“Sorry,” Alex says with a watery chuckle. “Today’s been kind of…”

“Cathartic?” Ana supplies. “Overwhelming? Emotional?”

“Yes.” Alex nods. “Exactly that.”

Suddenly Ana’s eyes zero in on Alex’s lips, and her lashes flutter beautifully. And before Alex can even process it, Ana is leaning forward to press a kiss to her cheek, lingering just slightly. Then, with one last heart-wrenching smile she turns and exits the store.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next, Maggie stops by to check in on Lucy and ends up in the middle of her first Danvers family night.


	14. Maggie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been forever! I'm so sorry. This was certainly not forgotten, and I'm hoping I'll have more posted soon. But for now, enjoy!
> 
> As always, all mistakes are mine...

That night Maggie has a vice grip on the neck of a bottle of wine as she approaches Kara and Lucy’s front door. She isn’t entirely sure what’s compelled her to seek out the two women instead of just staying home by herself and staying below the radar, but now that she’s standing on their front porch, she can’t stop herself from knocking.

She’s surprised when Alex is the one to open the door. Alex seems just as surprised to see her, but her surprise quickly melts and turns into a radiant smile that makes Maggie’s insides twist.

“Hi.”

Maggie smiles shyly. “Hi. Sorry to stop by unannounced. I wanted to see how Lucy was feeling.”

“Not at all,” Alex waves her off and swings the door open wider. “Come on in.”

Maggie follows her back to the living room, grinning when Zoe leaps to her feet and greets her with an enthusiastic hug.

“Miss Ana!”

“Hi, Zoe.” She hugs the little girl back and looks to her mothers. Lucy is lying across the couch, her legs in Kara’s lap. There’s a fire in the fireplace and the lights are dimmed for Lucy. It feels warm and intimate, and again she wishes she could have called first.

“Sorry to impose. I just wanted to stop by and see how you were feeling?”

Kara visibly melts. “That’s so sweet. You’re totally not imposing.”

Lucy’s lips twitch in an affectionate smile reserved solely for Kara before her eyes cut to Maggie. “That _is_ very sweet. I’m feeling okay. Just a concussion, minor whiplash, and a few stitches. I’ve been ordered to take it easy for a few days.”

Kara shoots her a pointed look. “Days?”

Lucy rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “Weeks, yes. But I’ll be fine in a few days.”

Maggie smiles and pulls the paper bag from under her arm and hands it to Lucy. “I know you can’t drink with a concussion...”

“Lots of concussion experience?” Lucy teases, but Maggie tenses.

_She’s just teasing. She has no way of knowing that your wife was responsible for you having three concussions._

Maggie tries to laugh it off, but it sounds awkward and clipped and she ignores the way Alex’s eyes seem to be burning into her. “I’ve had my share, I guess.” She clears her throat. “Anyways, I brought you this.”

Lucy peeks in the bag and her head falls back with a laugh. “I knew I loved you.”

Maggie feels her cheeks pink and her head falls forward, lips pursed, totally unsure how to take the compliment. When she lifts her head, she finds Alex watching her with a warm smile.

Lucy pulls the quart of double chocolate chunk ice cream from the bag. “Thank you. I’ve been dying for ice cream.”

Alex nudges her gently. “Help me with the wine?”

Maggie glances up at her and nods, following Alex into the kitchen. Zoe trails in after them at the promise of ice cream, and Alex situates her on the counter as she pours a few glasses of wine and sets Maggie to the task of scooping out the ice cream.

A moment later Maggie is carefully helping Zoe back down to her feet, bowl grasped firmly between her tiny hands.

“What do you say, Bug?”

“Thanks, Miss Ana,” Zoe replies automatically, smiling widely at them both before she disappears back into the living room.

Alex hands Maggie a glass of wine, which she sips slowly, content to watch Alex over the rim of her glass as she pours two more.

“Are you sure I’m not imposing?” Maggie asks.

“Not at all,” Alex assures her with a warm smile. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Maggie can’t help but stare at her. Her hair is pulled back off her face and she’s dressed casually in a thin t-shirt and jeans, her feet bare. She looks effortlessly beautiful and Maggie can’t help but take a step closer.

Her brain is absolutely screaming at her to stop. To take a step back. To leave and stay under the radar. But she ignores it completely.

Maggie leans in close, her hips trapping Alex against the counter. She sets her glass down on the counter, and reaches for Alex’s, setting it next to her own. Her hands find Alex’s hips, thumbs tracing over hip bones through her thin t-shirt.

Alex’s eyes are mapping her face, and she lifts both hands to tuck Maggie’s hair back behind her ears. One hand remains carefully pressed against her neck, thumb gently caressing her jaw.

“Hi,” Alex whispers, her lips tugging up at the corners.

Maggie can’t help the grin that breaks out across her face, because this feels so good to be so close to Alex. It feels so right, and she can’t deny it any longer. She’d gotten a taste of it earlier in the store and was unable to think of anything else for the rest of the afternoon.

“Is this okay?” Maggie asks softly, and suddenly they’re close enough to be breathing the same air.

Alex bites her lip and nods, her fingers pressing gently at Maggie’s nape, urging her closer, but not closing the distance completely. “Very okay.”

Maggie smirks because Alex sounds breathless, and it seems she’s been just as desperate for this to happen as Maggie has.

She presses forward and it’s perfect.

Alex is soft and sweet and she tastes like the wine forgotten on the counter. She’s warm and kisses her so, so carefully.

Alex pulls back only long enough to tilt her head the other way before she’s leaning in again, pressing their lips flush with the sweetest softness.

“Hey, I thought we were getting ice cream!” Kara’s voice travels into the kitchen.

Alex pulls back slowly, keeping her forehead pressed against Maggie’s. She hums lowly and Maggie feels it twist low in her gut.

“Ten second warning,” Alex murmurs into the scant space between them.

Sure enough, ten seconds later Kara enters the room and she stops short, clearly sensing she’s interrupted something by the size of the grin on her face.

Maggie makes no move to step back from Alex’s body and she grins when Alex reaches behind herself blindly to grab the tub of ice cream and holds it out for her sister.

“Here,” she says, eyes never leaving Maggie’s.

Kara snorts with laughter and steps close enough to take the tub and she stops for spoons before leaving them in the room alone again.

“Should we get out there?” Maggie whispers, not wanting to break the spell.

“Not yet,” Alex says, just as softly. She leans forward to steal another soft kiss, but she can’t help the grin that spreads over her lips. “I feel like I’ve waited too long for this. I’m not ready to let you go just yet.”

Maggie feels like her insides are burning at Alex’s admission and she leans forward again, her hands twisting in the soft material of Alex’s shirt to keep her close.

 

Eventually they join the other two in the living room, earning smirks from Kara and Lucy, which they both ignore. Alex takes a seat on the couch across from where Kara and Lucy are lounging, leaving Maggie to decide how much space to put between them.

It’s small things with Alex that have made all the difference since the beginning. Alex seems so in tune with what she needs and Maggie has never even had to ask. And while she thinks Alex is certainly smart enough to probably have an inkling of what’s happened to her in the past, she’s never pushed, never demanded, and always given Maggie the space she needs to decide what _she_ wants.

It means the world.

Maggie sits down next to her. Close.

Alex crosses one leg over the other and casually drapes an arm across the back of the couch. She leans in so she can whisper, “Is this okay?” She presses a soft kiss to Maggie’s temple that makes her shiver.

Maggie meets her gaze and gives her a nod, unable to help the smile that breaks out over their closeness. “Yeah.”

Alex winks, and turns as Zoe emerges from the hall with a box in both hands that she hurries to carry to the waiting adults.

“Aunt Alex?” she asks as she sets the box down.

“Yes, Bug?”

“Can we play the fish game?”

Zoe is one smart little rascal.

She’s clearly picked up on the fact that one of her mothers isn’t feeling well, and the other seems to be waiting on _her_ hand and foot, so her best bet at getting what she wants is to charm her doting Aunt.

“Of course, sweetie,” Alex tells her, and by the look on her face she knows as well as everyone that she’s being played by a child, but as is standard with Zoe Danvers, no one ever seems to mind.

Zoe’s favorite game is a game with tiny magnetic fishing poles and a spinning pond with small magnetic fish that make her squeal delightedly every time she catches one. The adults – minus Lucy – all delight in making her giggle, so they come up with silly, creative ways to catch the fish.

There’s absolutely no point to it, and no one ever wins the fish game, but it’s adorable and silly and fun all the same.

After about an hour, Zoe’s squeals of delight turn more into whiny half-cheers that signal the smallest of them is about to fall asleep.

“Bed time for the Bug, I think,” Kara announces, making Zoe whine again rather dramatically, which causes all the adults to hide smiles. Kara scoops her up with minimal resistance, and they can all see her eyes drooping as her head falls to Kara’s shoulder.

“Kiss for Mama,’ Kara says as she kneels down facing away from Lucy so Zoe can kiss her mother goodnight.

“Blow kisses for Aunt Alex and Miss Ana,” Kara tells her, and Zoe grins, pressing her hands to her mouth to blow them both kisses.

“Goodnight, Zoe,” Maggie tells her with a grin.

“Story time, babe,” Kara says as she pats the little girl on the back gently, moving towards the hall to Zoe’s room.

“Aunt Alex too!” Zoe calls from the hall.

Alex - as if she was expecting it - shoots Maggie a grin and moves to stand, dropping a hand to Maggie’s knee to help push herself up. She squeezes gently once before releasing her leg.

“I’ll be right back,” Alex tells her softly as she sets her wine down and moves to the hall.

“Thanks for letting me crash your night,” Maggie tells Lucy once they’re alone. The silence is comfortable between them. They can both _just_ hear the story that Kara and Alex are telling Zoe, complete with all sorts of sound effects, and they both grin when they hear the littlest Danvers giggle.

“What’s the point of having a family this amazing if I can’t share it?” Lucy says softly, her eyes never leaving Maggie’s.

The statement nearly stops Maggie’s heart.

Because what Lucy is implying – what she’s offering - is only _everything_ that Maggie has ever dreamed of. A family to love her. People to share her life with. People to love. Who make each other laugh, who care deeply about one another.

She certainly doesn’t know what to say. And even if she did, she can’t speak past the lump in her throat.

Lucy seems to get it, though. She stays quiet. The only noise in the room is the crackling fire and the quieter voices of the other women in the house.

“I’m not sure I could ever repay you. Or thank you enough,” Maggie chokes out finally. Because she has to say something. Something so Lucy knows how much it _means_. “For all of this. Letting me in so easily.”

Lucy shakes her head. “You never, ever have to. Kara and Alex gave me a family when mine wanted nothing to do with me. All I ask is that you don’t hurt her. Alex seems tough, but she’s been through a lot, and I don’t want to see her brokenhearted.”

“I promise,” Maggie whispers. And even as the words are out of her mouth, she wonders about how on Earth she could possibly keep that promise. If _she_ showed up tomorrow, would Maggie honestly be able to stay? To put this wonderful family in harms way? And Maggie has been lying to them all for _months_. She truly doesn’t deserve any of this. But she wants it all so badly that she lets herself be selfish. For once.

For all her fears and doubts, she’s sure of one thing. That she can’t walk away from Alex now.

“So I’ve been thinking,” Maggie says. She swallows hard, unable to meet Lucy’s piercing eyes watching her across the coffee table. “I was hoping to take you up on your offer.”

Lucy is silent for a moment, and Maggie’s stomach drops, because maybe Lucy had only been kidding about the self-defense, maybe she was just being polite. And now she feels like a complete idiot for bringing it up. Her cheeks burn with embarrassment.

“Any time you want to start, Dimples,” Lucy tells her with a grin. “How about next time we’re both off work? I know somewhere we can go and be away from prying Danvers eyes.”

Maggie’s relief must be visible and she nods. “Thanks, Lucy.”

Lucy winks at her and they suddenly hear the two sisters returning to the living room. Kara lifts Lucy’s sprawled out legs and takes a seat, draping the legs across her lap. Then she spends a few moments fussing over her; making sure her blanket is covering her legs and she doesn’t need something else to drink.

Alex reclaims her seat next to Maggie, casually placing her arm across the back of the couch again, and Maggie scoots closer to her, smiling when Alex’s arm moves to hold her close.

“Is she still all about princesses?” Lucy asks with an adoring smile.

“Certainly not the damsel kind,” Kara replies with a grin. “She’s decided that she’s going to be a princess and rescue other princes and princesses that need help, instead of being the one needing the rescuing.”

“That’s my girl,” Lucy replies fondly.

“Then she’s going to teach the other princesses how to fight dragons so they never get kidnapped again,” Alex adds with a proud smile.

Maggie can’t help the giggle that escapes her. “That is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.”

 

Lucy starts to fall asleep about an hour later, and after the day she’s had it’s not surprising why. She stays awake long enough to bid their guests goodnight, and suddenly Kara is carrying her off to bed, telling Alex just to leave the mess and that she’ll get to it in the morning.

“Can I give you a lift home?” Alex asks softly as she closes and locks the front door behind her.

“Yeah,” Maggie replies with a smile. “Thanks.”

Alex offers her hand, and Maggie watches the grin that breaks out once she slips her hand into Alex’s. They walk around the house to her jeep, and Alex holds the door open for her with a shy smile, closing it carefully once she’s settled.

They drive in silence, exchanging soft smiles at every stop sign and red light, and Maggie can’t help but reach for her hand in the dark, holding it between both of her own.

The drive is always too short.

Again, Alex gets the door for her and it makes Maggie blush, reaching for Alex’s hand as the redhead leads them to the door.

Alex stops and turns towards her, reaching up to carefully swipe a stray strand of hair back behind her ear. The contact doesn’t so much as even make her flinch. And it’s then that she realizes she trusts Alex implicitly not to hurt her, physically or otherwise.

But she also knows that Alex will wait for her to make the first move.

“I’m glad you came over tonight,” Alex whispers into the dark between them, and Maggie can just see a hint of color splashed over the tops of her cheeks.

“Me too,” Maggie replies, just as softly, not wanting to break the spell around them just yet. She reaches for Alex’s hands and pulls her close, guiding both hands back around her waist so they’re standing flush, her own hands sliding up Alex’s arms to circle her neck. “Can I kiss you again?”

And Alex barely has time to nod before Maggie’s lips cover hers once more.

They take their time, knowing there are no kids and sisters to interrupt and it brings something to life inside Maggie that’s been asleep for too long.

She wants this. She wants Alex. Not just physically, but she wants to let Alex in. She wants to stay in this sleepy little town for as long as Alex wants her.

And that thought stops her cold.

Alex pulls away, sensing a sudden change.

“Sorry,” Maggie whispers, her thumb swiping over her own lips. She feels her cheeks heat up and her head falls until her gaze settles on her shoes.

Alex hooks a finger under her chin and gently guides her face up until Maggie meets her gaze. Alex’s eyes are soft, they’re understanding, and so, so warm.

“Don’t apologize,” Alex murmurs, leaning close to press a kiss to Maggie’s forehead before squeezing her hand. “I’ll see you soon?”

Maggie smiles warmly up at her, so undeniably grateful for how understanding Alex always seems to be.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “See you soon, Alex.”

“Night.”

Alex winks at her and is back in her jeep before Maggie can even respond. She watches her drive away, fingers on her lips again, wondering how long it will be before she’s completely drowning in Alex Danvers.

Part of her wonders if she already is.

Whatever it is, it feels amazing.


	15. Maggie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> quick update!

A few days later Maggie is riding her new bike to the store for a few things she needs. It’s a pretty day and she has the entire afternoon off and to herself, and she has to admit that riding the bike has saved her so much time. She plans on splurging a little on ingredients for dinner and then spending the night reading a few of the books she picked up from Alex’s.

Her heart stutters a bit just at the thought of the other woman. And the jittery heart beat should be enough for her to be hightailing out of town, but instead it makes her smile. Alex makes her smile. But it’s not just her. Kara and Lucy and Zoe make her smile, and the boys at the restaurant do too.

She approaches and finds Zoe holding Mr. Bojangles by the leash standing next to Alex, who appears to be locking the front door of the store. When she turns she catches sight of Maggie and smiles. It’s enough to stop her heart again. She’s just that beautiful.

“Ana,” Alex greets warmly once she’s close enough. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she greets them both, hopping off the bike and leaning it against the store railing.

“Miss Ana!” Zoe spins on her heel and drops the leash in her hands, springing towards Maggie and launching herself into her arms.

“Oof.” Maggie is rocked back a step with the weight of the little girl, but she recovers and props her up on her hip like she’s seen everyone else do. Zoe settles right in.

“Sorry,” Alex says with a hint of a smile that tells Maggie how not sorry she really is. “Once she’s comfortable with someone, she really has no boundaries. I bet you can guess which mother she gets that from.”

“I don’t know,” Maggie says playfully. “Lucy has bounded into my arms a few times when you’re not around. She’s surprisingly heavy for someone so small.”

Alex laughs. “It’s her giant head,” she quips.

“Momma’s head is giant?” Zoe wonders.

“Heart,” Alex tries to cover, badly. “Your mom has a giant _heart_. Full of love for you, little Bug.”

Maggie coughs to cover a laugh, earning a playful glare. Her heart feels so full in her chest in that moment. Her goal had been to blend in, and keep to herself, and not let anyone get close enough to her to hurt her again, but somehow Alex and her amazingly genuine, generous, loving family had made it through every defense she thought she’d put up.

“Want to come to the park with us?”

Suddenly giant dark blue eyes are gazing up at her with that damn puppy dog expression, and she knows exactly where Zoe got that expression from.

Before Maggie can answer, Alex’s eyes dart to hers. “Don’t feel obligated. And sorry; did you want to pick up a few things from inside before we go? I feel like your shopping trips keep getting sabotaged.” She flashes a crooked smile that makes Maggie’s heart skip. Then Zoe chimes in, and she knows she’s a gonner.

“We’re gonna walk Mr. Bojangles and roll down the hills and blow bubbles and get some ice cream,” Zoe seems to throw the last one in slyly, tossing a begging glance over to Alex, and Maggie has to press her lips together and bite them to keep from cracking up.

Alex shakes her head, because it’s clear that Zoe has already won the argument over ice cream before they’ve even had it.

“That _does_ sound tempting,” Maggie says with a grin. She catches Alex’s eye. “Do you mind if I tag along?”

“I’d love you to,” Alex says, then her face scrunches up at her words. “I’d love it if you joined us, yes. Sorry.”

Zoe, still nestled on Maggie’s hip, leans her body closer to Alex, forcing Maggie to take two quick steps closer to Alex to keep her from tumbling out of her arms, and Zoe reaches out her hand to press it to Alex’s forehead once she’s close enough. “Aunt Alex, are you okay? Your face is red and you’re saying a lot of words.”

Alex sighs out a heavy breath, but her lips are quirking up at the corners, and while she looks like she’s waiting for the ground to swallow her up, she looks stunning and Maggie can’t help but stare. Her hair is pushed off her face by her aviators, and the summer sun has smattered her nose and cheeks with freckles and she looks so casually summery in a faded baseball style shirt with three-quarter sleeves and a pair of cut off khaki shorts.

Alex is stunning. And if there wasn’t a child in her arms, and if she didn’t have enough baggage to fill a bus, Maggie would be leaning in to kiss the smile right off her face.

“Are we ready to go?” Alex asks. She grasps Zoe’s hand and slings her down out of Maggie’s arms. “Come on, Bug, you get to walk Mr. B.”

They stroll past Henshaw’s and a voice rings out. “That sure is a pretty date you have there, Danvers!”

A glance in that direction finds Lucy Lane making kissy faces at them from the patio. Kara is behind her, watching from her section with a dreamy expression on her face.

“Very professional, Lane!” she calls back, smirking when Lucy holds up her pinky finger at her.

“Did she just give you the pinky?” Maggie asks with a smile, ignoring the rush of warmth in her cheeks at being called Alex’s date. “I’m not sure I can take her seriously after seeing her do that.”

Alex laughs. “Kara and I used to do that instead of flipping each other the bird growing up. It didn’t take long for mom to catch on.”

“And now Lucy uses it?”

“It’s only fair,” Alex sighs. “She’s been the other sister I never wanted. For ten years now.”

Her voice holds so much affection that Maggie can tell she’s clearly kidding. It makes her wonder what it must be like to know someone for so long.

“Is that how long they’ve been together?” Maggie asks.

Alex nods. “Lucy and I were roommates at Duke our freshman year. Her father is military and he was stationed in Japan when school got out for the summer, so she came here with me. She met Kara and as gross as it sounds, I’m pretty sure it was love at first sight for both of them. They split for a while when Lucy and I graduated. Lucy went to DC to work for her father, but it didn’t last. They were married a few months after she moved here, and then we got Zoe.”

“That’s really sweet,” Maggie says. “And Zoe’s so great,” she says, nodding to the little girl skipping ahead of them with the dog leash in her hands.

“She’s amazing,” Alex says softly. “I never thought I wanted kids, but then I see Zo, and I think if I had a kid half as amazing as her, I’d be the luckiest person in the world.”

Maggie can’t help the grin on her face, because it’s true. Anyone would be lucky to have a kid half as sweet as the little one walking ahead of them. And she can’t help the way her mind’s eye conjures an image of a pregnant Alex, glowing, her hands covering her belly. It makes for a beautiful sight.

“What about you?” Alex asks quietly, hands stuffed in her pockets, looking and sounding shy all of a sudden.

Maggie blinks, her smile vanishing. She swallows hard and blinks back the tears that prickle at the back of her eyes. “Oh. I don’t really think it’s in the cards for me.”

As if sensing her discomfort, Alex grimaces. “Sorry, was that too personal?”

“No,” Maggie replies quickly. She knows it’s a bad idea. She should be keeping her mouth shut, but she can’t help it. “I miscarried twice.”

“Oh my God,” Alex gasps and she halts, placing a hand on Maggie’s arm. “I’m so sorry. I feel like a total asshole for asking.”

“It’s fine,” Maggie assures her, even as she feels ghosts of her past escaping the little boxes in her mind she’d locked them in. “I sort of feel like one could happen to anyone, but _two_ was the universe’s way of saying it wasn’t really gonna happen for me.”

Alex stands there sort of stupefied, blinking at Maggie with a sort of watery expression, until they’re interrupted by a tiny, commanding voice.

“Aunt Alex! Come on!”

“I’m sorry,” Alex murmurs quietly again as they begin to walk again.

 

Once they arrive at the park, Alex and Maggie shake out a large blanket and they both smile when Mr. Bojangles settles onto it and begins napping in the sun. Alex pulls out some bubbles and a ball she spends five minutes pumping up.

Maggie can’t help but worry she’s going to make a total fool out of herself in front of Alex for the sake of Zoe, but then Zoe pulls Alex to her feet and the pair of them race up a nearby hill and make a grand show of rolling down it as fast as either of them can.

Maggie is able to sit still for about ten minutes before Zoe is pulling her up the hill as well. She tries to focus on whatever it is that Zoe has them both doing over the next hour, but she can’t help but watch Alex interact with the smallest Danvers.

It’s the most adorable thing she’s ever seen.

Maggie watches as they blow bubbles and roll down the hill more times than any of them count, and Alex chases Zoe, and allows herself to be chased. She gives herself over to every whim Zoe has and Maggie finds that it absolutely melts her heart, and if she’s totally honest with herself she can feel herself falling just a little bit in love with Alex Danvers.

It’s a thought that stops her cold.

“I wanted to thank you,” Alex says, and suddenly the world is warm again.

Zoe is nearby, tossing a tennis ball to Mr. B and giggling every time he brings back a drool-covered ball and drops it at her feet.

“What for?” Maggie asks curiously, unable to come up with anything she should be thanked for.

Alex bites her lip and glances towards Zoe, as if she’s making sure the little girl is suitably distracted.

“I’ve never seen her take to someone so quickly before,” Alex says quietly. She stares at the space between them for a moment before pressing her hand into the blanket to hoist herself closer. “You were there for her the other day when Lucy fell. I know she was scared and she reached out to you.”

“It was nothing,” Maggie insists, waving her off.

“It was definitely not nothing,” Alex argues softly. She inhales deeply through her nose and holds it for a moment before exhaling heavily, making her cheeks puff out. “Zoe loves and trusts exactly 3 people,” she says softly, and something about that statement breaks Maggie’s heart. “Her moms and me. And it took almost a year of me seeing her every single day before that happened. Kara and Lucy asked her once last year if she wanted a baby brother or a sister and she said no because she didn’t want anyone else that she loved to go away forever.” Alex meets her gaze, her dark eyes watery when they turn to her. “Do you know how heartbreaking that is to hear a child say that? She’s just a baby. Losing my parents was devastating for her.” She sucks in a shaky breath. “Anyways, my point is that she was scared and she reached for you, and you may not realize how big of a deal that is, but the rest of us do. And it means a lot that you’re here. Right now, and in the grander sense.”

Maggie is stunned into silence. Her eyes cut to the little girl still tossing the ball for the dog that’s looking a lot less enthusiastic about fetching than he was ten minutes ago. She swallows past the lump in her throat. “I don’t know what to say.” She knows it’s pathetic, and she certainly can’t bring herself to meet Alex’s eye.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Alex finally says, her voice soft and sincere. “I just wanted you to know how much you mean to her.” There’s a brief pause. “To all of us.”

It’s said softly, vulnerably, and Maggie’s heart skips in her chest. Rather than say anything, she presses her hand closer to Alex’s on the blanket, letting their fingers graze.

She’s grateful that Alex doesn’t say anything, just bumps their shoulders together gently as they watch Zoe spin herself in circles.

She knows what she’s doing is the exact opposite of what she told herself she would be doing, but she can’t find it within herself to care.


End file.
